History notes

Janice masters machine

Many individual graduates from the School have led, and continue to lead intrepid lives contributing much to the positive development of physiotherapy in New Zealand and internationally.

Janice Masur who was born in Eritrea and raised in Uganda under British rule, graduated from the School in 1965. After a spell at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Rotorua she left for Canada in 1967 to become a proud Vancouverite and, more recently a published author.

Earlier this year Janice sent us this recollection of student life ...

"In 1963, I was a second year Physiotherapy student at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand.

The only Short Wave Diathermy (SWD) machine we had available was very temperamental. For some inexplicable reason this particular Siemens apparatus just happened to be on the same short wave spectrum as the local Dunedin taxi radio.

So, whenever there was a taxi communication in the street outside the physio school the SWD machine would suddenly stop producing its electrical current. This meant we always had to keep an observant eye on the possibility that the dial needle might suddenly fluctuate to zero when the machine would immediately stop producing the required heat to the joint correctly placed in between the two black diodes.

The patient would not bat an eyelid as we students did what we had been taught. Namely, to give a good hard kick to the back of the machine at which point as if by magic, electrotherapy treatment would resume"

Picnic at the summit of Mt Tarawera, clockwise from left; Alan Jeffs, Jan Miller, Richard Carr, Janice Fraser, Carol Newson and (foreground) Janice Masur - Credit: Private collection of John Caudwell