Dr Gail Donaldson takes a moment after taking part in the graduation procession on Saturday before receiving a PhD in physiotherapy.
Dr Gail Donaldson found achieving her doctorate in hand therapy was a marathon not a sprint – she did it part-time over 10 years, across the globe, while raising her family and operating her own hand therapy practice in Wellington.
The School of Physiotherapy graduate grew up in rural New Zealand, she was the ninth born in her family and the only one who went on to do tertiary education.
“I grew up in the country and so for me going to physiotherapy school was a huge achievement,” Gail says.
“I was the last physio in New Zealand who received a Department of Health bonded grant for financial hardship. This provided financial support if I agree to work wherever they would send me after I graduated, Masterton hospital was where I landed.”
Working at Masterton Hospital, the doctors encouraged her to move to the burns and plastic surgery unit at Hutt Hospital in Wellington, where she would go on to spend a decade and specialised in hand therapy.
Discussion with an academic at a conference encouraged her to have her research recognised so she reached out to the University of Otago to formalise her research via distance learning.
Through this she met the now-retired Dr Gill Johnson who helped her achieve her Masters starting with learning how to use a computer.
“We didn’t have computers in hospitals at the time and so I would sit at my kitchen table and attempt to work from Wellington which was highly unusual then and a massive technological learning curve.
“People can take distance learning for granted these days but know that the University of Otago was ahead of its time because at that stage most people could only access knowledge from whatever books were available in their hospital library,” she says.
Gail owned her own hand therapy practice at the time, which is still operating, and had a family to take care of so she couldn’t relocate to Otago to do her PhD after her Masters.
She decided to keep studying via distance which resulted in Zoom meetings from a variety of places like storage cupboards, sewing rooms, holiday houses, and various spaces in France and America due to her French husband and daughter living in America.
Gail credits a huge part of her journey to her mother, who passed away when she was young and who was not allowed an education after completing primary school as she was expected to work within the home.
Her mother’s experience motivated Gail to pursue education and encourage her children, especially her daughters, to do the same.
Gail’s PhD was on using silicone oil in hand rehabilitation, wanting to investigate something that could be clinically relevant and help people in their everyday lives.
Through a randomised trial feasibility study, she identified that use of silicone wound care products may help minimise patients pain experiences when they perform hand exercises during recovery following hand surgery.
The hand needs to move to function well, Gail says.
When people have surgery or a serious injury there are special ways to exercise the hand to make sure they don’t get stuck in deformed positions - the use of silicone may help with these exercises.
Kōrero by Kelsey Swart