Pilates Careers: Working in a Clinical Environment
By Nicole Rogers
Hospital for Special Surgery in New YorkAs the U.S. population grows older, and as the medical community gains a greater understanding of the benefits of Pilates, more Pilates professionals may have the opportunity to work in clinical settings with special populations. I sat down with one such instructor, Steven Fetherhuff, and asked him to share his experiences as one of two Pilates instructors at the prestigious Hospital for Special Surgery’s Integrative Care Center in New York.
Q: How did you initially find out about the Pilates program at the Integrative Care Center?
A: A colleague of mine, Sarah Faller, approached me about it. I used to work with Sarah at Alycea Ungaro’s studio. She’s the Pilates coordinator for the Integrative Health Care Center, and when she told me about it I was like, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”
Q: Are patients referred to you by their doctors?
A: They can be. We get patients who are referred by doctors, physical therapists, massage therapists, chiropractors, etc. We also have people who just live or work in the area. It’s not covered by insurance. So most people we get come from the hospital system, post-physical therapy, but not all.
Q. Do their doctors or therapists prescribe anything for you to do with them, or is it mostly left up to you?
A: Pretty much, it’s up to us. So sometimes the physical therapists say, “This is what they’ve been working on, this is what their injuries are,” but by then they’re pretty much discharged from PT, so whatever was causing the pain, or what have you, is back to working well. Mostly the incentive to come to us from PT is like, “Yeah their arm’s getting better, but their core’s a mess.”
Q. Do you find the doctors, physical therapists, etc., respectful of and receptive to your work?
A: I think so. I mean that’s the nice thing about the ICC—we have a couple physiatrists, medical directors and all sorts of other people. For the most part I would say all the doctors are pretty good within our little satellite outpatient studio. Now, a lot of the doctors from the actual hospital, orthopedists for example, are sending us more people because they’re finding that they’re getting good results, but they don’t necessarily always know exactly what we do, which is the hard part. For example, osteoporosis doctors will be like, “I hear Pilates is really good for the core, and my osteoporosis patients could use core work.” But they don’t really know that if you tell your osteoporosis patient to do Pilates and they go to a gym someplace and join a class with thirty people, and try to do the Roll-Up, you know… But we do some workshops called Clinical Pilates: The Bridge between the Pilates System and Physical Therapy. The workshops are for physical therapists, physiatrists and exercise physiologists so they can understand what Pilates is. Then they can recommend it with better ease, if it’s appropriate for their patient.
Q. What are the patients’ reactions to Pilates?
A: For the most part, everyone’s really into it. The cool thing about working at the hospital is you have all of these people who’ve been in pain, and then they’ve gone through their physical therapy, and they’re just starting to get out of pain, and that feels amazing. And they’re really into moving their bodies in this new pain-free way. The physical therapists there are great about educating them, by not just telling them what to do, but also telling them why they are doing each exercise. And of course, just like anybody, these machines are so intriguing, and they’ve heard so much about Pilates.
Q. What kinds of injuries and illnesses do you see at work?
A: There is a really big range, but mostly I see osteoporosis, arthritis, joint replacements, but there is also a lot of ACL, and knees, hips, shoulders.
Q. How do you think Pilates helps people with these health issues?
A: The mind-body component, I think, is the most important part—focusing on how they’re moving, as opposed to just moving. The core component, I think is also so important, because everything stems from there.
Q. Has working with special populations in a hospital setting changed your perspective on Pilates?
A: I kind of think my perspective on Pilates is always changing, regardless. I mean the more and more I learn myself, studying with Kathy [Grant], studying with Irene [Dowd], teaching my clients—I always learn just as much from them, the more my perspective changes. But I think it’s made me just focus on the main tenants and theories of what Pilates is, rather than Pilates as just a workout, which wasn’t really ever my thing anyway. Which is why I ended up, I think, with this population.
Q. What is your background/training, and how do you think it helps you to deal with special populations?
A: Well, I started as a dancer, like every other Pilates teacher known to man (laughs), and I got my certification through [The Pilates Center], which was really into not just Pilates, but how people move, and seeing things in people’s bodies. Coming from a dance background, your training is to do that anyway, in terms of how you move your body. In New York, I’ve worked with Kathy [Grant], who started out with Mr. Pilates himself, based on her knee rehab. So already she’s approaching this from a rehab-ish sort of place. And Irene Dowd really opened my eyes to the anatomy and physiology of movement. Pilates is a perfect sort of partner to that way of thinking.
Q. How have those experiences with Kathy Grant and Irene Dowd helped you to develop as a teacher?
A: Mostly, the two of them are definitely smart. And they’re passionate about movement and education. And that’s been the most inspiring thing coming from them. And just the fact that they have such vast experience over time seeing all of these fads within exercise and therapy come and go. They have a unique perspective on how people move. And working with them physically as my instructors, if I can learn ideas they have within my body, it’s easier for me [to feel it and teach it].
Q. If you were hiring someone to do your job, what traits would you look for?
A: I think someone who can think outside of the box, someone who isn’t so hung up on the “rules” of Pilates, because everybody’s different, and you really see that when you’re working with people who are limited in some way or challenged in a certain part of their body. And I think that’s true for working with any population. I think that’s hopefully what we subscribe to as instructors—that we see the body in front of us and really work with it. I think that’s the most important thing when you realize, “Well, I’m not going to be able to do this classical series of things with this person in front of me.” You’re going to have to break it down. You have to have a lot of patience.
Q. What do you see as the greatest advantages to working in a hospital environment like yours? The greatest drawbacks? You don’t have to say the drawbacks if you don’t want to.
A: (Laughs) Do you want to get me fired?
The advantage is that I have a wealth of expertise and information at my fingertips. If I have things that are beyond my scope of practice in terms of medical issues, I have physical therapists that work with the same people, physiatrists, all of these people… Which is what I think is great about the Integrative Care Center—I’m not just in one population. The PTs, the doctors, the massage therapists, the chiropractors, the pain management specialists, the acupuncturists, all these people can put their point of view into treating this patient, and we share a lot of patients that way. So it’s truly comprehensive care, and we can sort of work as a team. That’s the greatest benefit. If you’ve ever taught privately and you’re in the studio by yourself all the time, you just start glazing over because you can’t look at any more bodies. You just don’t have as many new ideas in that vacuum.
The drawback is that even though we have this facility, I think that in the medical community there are still not enough people who know what Pilates necessarily is. I think what we’re trying to do, and what Sarah is trying to do in coordinating the program, is to help people understand what Pilates can be. And that is not just an infomercial.
Steven Fetherhuff danced professionally for 20 years and has been studying the Pilates method since 1990. He trained at The Pilates Center and continues his Pilates education with Kathleen S. Grant. He assists neuromuscular educator Irene Dowd in teaching anatomy and movement workshops, has trained teachers and students in Japan, France and the U.S. and presented with Dowd and Grant at several conferences. Steven lives in New York where he maintains a private practice and is on staff at Hospital for Special Surgery’s Integrative Care Center.
Hospital for Special Surgery in New YorkAs the U.S. population grows older, and as the medical community gains a greater understanding of the benefits of Pilates, more Pilates professionals may have the opportunity to work in clinical settings with special populations. I sat down with one such instructor, Steven Fetherhuff, and asked him to share his experiences as one of two Pilates instructors at the prestigious Hospital for Special Surgery’s Integrative Care Center in New York.Q: How did you initially find out about the Pilates program at the Integrative Care Center?
A: A colleague of mine, Sarah Faller, approached me about it. I used to work with Sarah at Alycea Ungaro’s studio. She’s the Pilates coordinator for the Integrative Health Care Center, and when she told me about it I was like, “That’s exactly what I want to do!”
Q: Are patients referred to you by their doctors?
A: They can be. We get patients who are referred by doctors, physical therapists, massage therapists, chiropractors, etc. We also have people who just live or work in the area. It’s not covered by insurance. So most people we get come from the hospital system, post-physical therapy, but not all.
Q. Do their doctors or therapists prescribe anything for you to do with them, or is it mostly left up to you?
A: Pretty much, it’s up to us. So sometimes the physical therapists say, “This is what they’ve been working on, this is what their injuries are,” but by then they’re pretty much discharged from PT, so whatever was causing the pain, or what have you, is back to working well. Mostly the incentive to come to us from PT is like, “Yeah their arm’s getting better, but their core’s a mess.”
Q. Do you find the doctors, physical therapists, etc., respectful of and receptive to your work?
A: I think so. I mean that’s the nice thing about the ICC—we have a couple physiatrists, medical directors and all sorts of other people. For the most part I would say all the doctors are pretty good within our little satellite outpatient studio. Now, a lot of the doctors from the actual hospital, orthopedists for example, are sending us more people because they’re finding that they’re getting good results, but they don’t necessarily always know exactly what we do, which is the hard part. For example, osteoporosis doctors will be like, “I hear Pilates is really good for the core, and my osteoporosis patients could use core work.” But they don’t really know that if you tell your osteoporosis patient to do Pilates and they go to a gym someplace and join a class with thirty people, and try to do the Roll-Up, you know… But we do some workshops called Clinical Pilates: The Bridge between the Pilates System and Physical Therapy. The workshops are for physical therapists, physiatrists and exercise physiologists so they can understand what Pilates is. Then they can recommend it with better ease, if it’s appropriate for their patient.
Q. What are the patients’ reactions to Pilates?
A: For the most part, everyone’s really into it. The cool thing about working at the hospital is you have all of these people who’ve been in pain, and then they’ve gone through their physical therapy, and they’re just starting to get out of pain, and that feels amazing. And they’re really into moving their bodies in this new pain-free way. The physical therapists there are great about educating them, by not just telling them what to do, but also telling them why they are doing each exercise. And of course, just like anybody, these machines are so intriguing, and they’ve heard so much about Pilates.
Q. What kinds of injuries and illnesses do you see at work?
A: There is a really big range, but mostly I see osteoporosis, arthritis, joint replacements, but there is also a lot of ACL, and knees, hips, shoulders.
Q. How do you think Pilates helps people with these health issues?
A: The mind-body component, I think, is the most important part—focusing on how they’re moving, as opposed to just moving. The core component, I think is also so important, because everything stems from there.
Q. Has working with special populations in a hospital setting changed your perspective on Pilates?
A: I kind of think my perspective on Pilates is always changing, regardless. I mean the more and more I learn myself, studying with Kathy [Grant], studying with Irene [Dowd], teaching my clients—I always learn just as much from them, the more my perspective changes. But I think it’s made me just focus on the main tenants and theories of what Pilates is, rather than Pilates as just a workout, which wasn’t really ever my thing anyway. Which is why I ended up, I think, with this population.
Q. What is your background/training, and how do you think it helps you to deal with special populations?
A: Well, I started as a dancer, like every other Pilates teacher known to man (laughs), and I got my certification through [The Pilates Center], which was really into not just Pilates, but how people move, and seeing things in people’s bodies. Coming from a dance background, your training is to do that anyway, in terms of how you move your body. In New York, I’ve worked with Kathy [Grant], who started out with Mr. Pilates himself, based on her knee rehab. So already she’s approaching this from a rehab-ish sort of place. And Irene Dowd really opened my eyes to the anatomy and physiology of movement. Pilates is a perfect sort of partner to that way of thinking.
Q. How have those experiences with Kathy Grant and Irene Dowd helped you to develop as a teacher?
A: Mostly, the two of them are definitely smart. And they’re passionate about movement and education. And that’s been the most inspiring thing coming from them. And just the fact that they have such vast experience over time seeing all of these fads within exercise and therapy come and go. They have a unique perspective on how people move. And working with them physically as my instructors, if I can learn ideas they have within my body, it’s easier for me [to feel it and teach it].
Q. If you were hiring someone to do your job, what traits would you look for?
A: I think someone who can think outside of the box, someone who isn’t so hung up on the “rules” of Pilates, because everybody’s different, and you really see that when you’re working with people who are limited in some way or challenged in a certain part of their body. And I think that’s true for working with any population. I think that’s hopefully what we subscribe to as instructors—that we see the body in front of us and really work with it. I think that’s the most important thing when you realize, “Well, I’m not going to be able to do this classical series of things with this person in front of me.” You’re going to have to break it down. You have to have a lot of patience.
Q. What do you see as the greatest advantages to working in a hospital environment like yours? The greatest drawbacks? You don’t have to say the drawbacks if you don’t want to.
A: (Laughs) Do you want to get me fired?
The advantage is that I have a wealth of expertise and information at my fingertips. If I have things that are beyond my scope of practice in terms of medical issues, I have physical therapists that work with the same people, physiatrists, all of these people… Which is what I think is great about the Integrative Care Center—I’m not just in one population. The PTs, the doctors, the massage therapists, the chiropractors, the pain management specialists, the acupuncturists, all these people can put their point of view into treating this patient, and we share a lot of patients that way. So it’s truly comprehensive care, and we can sort of work as a team. That’s the greatest benefit. If you’ve ever taught privately and you’re in the studio by yourself all the time, you just start glazing over because you can’t look at any more bodies. You just don’t have as many new ideas in that vacuum.
The drawback is that even though we have this facility, I think that in the medical community there are still not enough people who know what Pilates necessarily is. I think what we’re trying to do, and what Sarah is trying to do in coordinating the program, is to help people understand what Pilates can be. And that is not just an infomercial.
;)
Steven Fetherhuff danced professionally for 20 years and has been studying the Pilates method since 1990. He trained at The Pilates Center and continues his Pilates education with Kathleen S. Grant. He assists neuromuscular educator Irene Dowd in teaching anatomy and movement workshops, has trained teachers and students in Japan, France and the U.S. and presented with Dowd and Grant at several conferences. Steven lives in New York where he maintains a private practice and is on staff at Hospital for Special Surgery’s Integrative Care Center.
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Posted on Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at 10:51AM
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Nicole Rogers
in Career Development, Instructor/Studio Profiles, Special Populations
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Nicole Rogers
in Career Development, Instructor/Studio Profiles, Special Populations
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1 Comment
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2 References
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Do you know what other hospitals run similar programs?