Matthew Goertzen: physio to the stars
Sasha Roeder Mah - 20 August 2024
The crowd at Rogers Place was going wild as the aging rock star leaped about onstage. You’d never know by looking at him that he had ruptured his Achilles tendon playing tennis just weeks before. His doctor had advised him to do his show from a seated position on a stool, but that clearly wasn’t his style. And besides, he was feeling loose and limber — he had just been prepped for the show by Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine instructor and physiotherapist Matthew Goertzen.
“He told me he had worked out a lot of strategies so he could do a sort of shuffling version of his usual signature moves,” recalls Goertzen with a laugh. “From backstage I could see him doing things I’m sure his surgeon wouldn't have been happy about, but he crushed his performance.”
For Goertzen, who had grown up listening to this band’s music, his first experience shifting from working as a staff physiotherapist with the Oil Kings into the wild world of stadium rock could not have gone better. “He gave me a shoutout from the stage! It's pretty rare that people in this line of work get recognition. If I bring a hockey player back from injury and they score a goal, it’s not like they thank me in the post-game interview.”
These days Goertzen splits his time between working as a team physiotherapist for the Oil Kings, limbering up the occasional rocker and teaching as an assistant lecturer and clinical supervisor at the University of Alberta. But back when he fell in love with working with sport injury during a second-year undergraduate course at the U of A, he never imagined the twists and turns his career and personal life would take and the ways the two would intersect.
“I was always that kid playing hockey and hoping to make a career of it but never being good enough. The thing that appealed to me early (as I pursued a master’s in physical therapy) was wow, this is a way I can stay involved in sport at a high level,” he remembers. But he soon developed an interest in other areas too. “The program did a really good job of opening my eyes to the fact that I might have an even more meaningful impact helping someone relearn how to navigate stairs in their house, rather than put the puck in the net.” He also discovered a love for teaching, realizing how many more patients he could reach by mentoring and coaching the therapists of the future.
At school, he also met his partner Alicia Souveny, a physiotherapist at the Stollery Children’s Hospital. They were just beginning to build a life together when Alicia was hit by a car on Whitemud Drive while attempting to get back on her way after a minor fender bender.
“It was a horrifying magnitude of injury,” recalls Goertzen — massive internal injuries resulted in severe loss of blood and an injury to her left leg required amputation below the knee. Goertzen lived the next two months in her hospital room, sleeping on a gurney at night and calling on his training to get her up and moving during the day. As the weeks progressed, the pressures of trying to be both a supportive partner and a full-time physiotherapist mounted, and the couple’s community stepped in.
Folks from every corner of Edmonton’s minor hockey world came together to help, with both a massive fundraising effort and a blood drive. Oil Kings head coach Luke Pierce — founder of Hockey Gives Blood — and head athletic therapist Brian Cheeseman gathered nearly the entire team to donate blood, and many other players and members of the close-knit hockey community also came forward. This life-saving measure had such an impact on Alicia that she is now the first para athlete ambassador for Hockey Gives Blood.
As Alicia began to recover her strength, she pondered what an active lifestyle could look like in her new reality. When several of her professional connections approached her to consider trying sledge hockey, Goertzen saw a spark return to her eyes. While she had always been very active, she had never played hockey — but after her injury and recovery, her passion and competitive spirit blossomed and she now plays for Team Canada.
Goertzen knows his therapeutic approach has changed forever because of his deeply personal and frightening experience with Alicia. “Before, I certainly didn't have the empathy or the understanding of how someone’s entire world revolves around a disability,” he says. “Now the hills I will die on with my patients are so different. Rather than focusing on how many squats they’re doing every day, I’ll chat with them about how their injury is affecting all aspects of their lives.”
Goertzen couldn’t imagine doing his work any other way now, despite the fact that providing this kind of holistic treatment might mean a quicker route to burnout. “You need to be able to develop a culture of trust where someone is willing to show vulnerability and emotion and as a therapist leverage that into excellent care.” He encourages his practicum students to follow the same approach, but cautions them to manage their caseloads wisely to avoid emotional or psychological exhaustion.
Goertzen loves every aspect of his work, from working with athletes to meeting rock stars. But, he says, it’s the teaching that brings him the most fulfilment. “The satisfaction I get with students is massive. I hope I make a meaningful difference in the profession by making sure the people entering the physio world are well equipped with skills, but also with good attitudes and good, strong identities. Because if you think of the best health-care professional you've ever met, it's not necessarily that they followed the latest literature or designed a foolproof, evidence-based practice. It's that you immediately felt they cared about you.”
Event:
Join the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine and the Department of Physical Therapy to hear the stories of Allison Beveridge and Alicia Souveny, two remarkable athletes, as they share their experiences.
Department of Physical Therapy Legacy Lecture
Friday, Sept. 13, 2024 | 4 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.