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Helena Pardo Casales, an MMB student based at UEA’s Medical School, completed her placement at Podoactiva, a podiatry and biomechanics company dedicated to improving patients’ quality of life through the improvement of their gait and biomechanics.
Helena commented, “despite what some people may think, working with feet can actually be very cool.”
She has always been passionate about sport and would love to direct her research towards the sports industry after she finishes her PhD in exploring the gut-muscle axis and the links between the gut microbiome and skeletal muscle hence her focus on doing her mandatory placement in an organisation linked to sport.
She wanted to get an idea of how the industry, its research and clinical diagnoses are translated into a final commercialised product, so doing a placement in industry was of the utmost importance to her. The Podoactiva placement was perfect as they have a combination of research, clinical diagnoses, bespoke sport footwear.
Podoactiva is a podiatry company created by podiatrists and so clinically led. Helena found the company history fascinating: they launched with just a mobile unit and currently have 28 clinics at street level and more than 150 hospital units. They are present across the world in Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Andorra, Costa Rica, Honduras, Poland, Slovenia and Egypt.
During her time there, she was mainly based in the R&D department, but also experienced how the clinic works, sat in on patient consultations plus saw the production line. Witnessing the entire process from a patient’s diagnosis through to their final star product, personalised orthotics, tailored to the needs depending on gait analysis and pathologies was truly valued.
These 3D printed, personalised insoles (image below) are worldwide patented and more importantly the technology to create them is also worldwide patented.
Helena learnt not just how a company functions but also experienced the synergy between all departments working to make the company successful. She found it inspiring working with and understanding all the differing functions at Podoactiva. She noted the collaboration between the teams on projects irrespective of their function or qualifications.
Helena enjoyed meeting some wonderful people that welcomed her with open arms and integrated her into the team immediately. Whilst being there she was one of them and was treated as such.
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She said, “I am extremely grateful for the experience and the opportunity and thank the Podoactiva team for their support and advice during my placement. I will profusely miss working with everyone. My placement experience gave me several additional professional skills and tools which I know I will use in my future career and I also made some very good friends that I am sure I will stay in touch with for a long time.”
For any PhD student starting to organise their placement, Helena recommends stepping out of your comfort zone and showing a willingness to learn. She admits she knew nothing about podiatry before going to Podoactiva but thoroughly enjoyed her placement and developing transferable skills of project management, funding options, marketing and communications.
She is very grateful for her experience with Podoactiva and feels even more confident on the career path she wants to follow when she finishes her PhD.