Congratulations to Judit Spence for receiving Emeritus status at the rank of Clinical Associate Professor.
Ms. Spence proved herself an excellent teacher and has been in the position of Clinical Associate Professor since 2012. She has contributed heavily to pediatric physiotherapy education, as well as supervising UBC PT students for 11 years.
As well as her classroom teaching, Judit has participated in an admirable amount of continuing professional development and served in many positions within the BC Centre For Ability, including Director of PT & OT. Judit is well known for her genuine care and concern for students and children as well as her dedication to supervision and leadership within Clinical Education and practice. Judit’s excellence as an educator has been recognized both inside and outside the University, as evidenced by the Access to Health Award from the BC Coalition of People with Disabilities and the UBC Faculty of Medicine Long Term Service Award – 25 years in 2016.
In addition to Ms. Spence’s educational and clinical contributions, she has provided significant service contributions to the Department, consistently serving on curricular and clinical committees, and contributing to initiatives such as ACE BC Invigilating and Clinical Education focus groups. She has made significant contributions to physical therapy throughout her career, both through clinical excellence and through service on numerous professional committees and working groups.
Name and Title(s):
Judit Spence
Clinical Associate Professor Emeritus
Tell us about your role as a clinical faculty member at UBC:
Starting immediately upon graduation I felt it was important to give back to my UBC community. Without my mentors, I would not have achieved all of my goals. Being a clinical faculty member benefited not only the students but also honed my clinical reasoning skills, teaching forced me to systematically verbalize my rationale for treatment choices and progressions. As a young practitioner, I become better through teaching.
As a clinical faculty member, many other opportunities for growth and development also became available. Serving on departmental committees (admissions, faculty, accreditation), guest lecturing, and selection to faculty of medicine committees to name just a few.
What have you learned while teaching that has surprised you the most?
Teaching always reminded me that I still had things to learn. Students can help us as clinicians stay current and help us refine our skills. I always enjoyed seeing the creativity they brought to programming and I admit to stealing some very good exercise/play ideas and applications.
What impact do you hope to have on the students you have taught?
I worked in community developmental pediatrics my entire career – an area of practice that was under-served when I started. I was always keen to take students hoping to show them how much fun this area of practice was and what a positive impact a talented pediatric therapist could make in a child and family’s life.
What drew you to physical therapy?
As a child and young adult, I was always interested in the medical field. Medical shows were my guilty pleasure. I was athletic and physical. I couldn’t imagine not being able to do the things I wanted to, physically. Physical Therapy offered an opportunity to blend physicality with service to those who needed help to recover or in the case of children, develop their physical capabilities.
When I went to UBC, the program was a combined PT/OT degree program in Rehabilitation Therapy. I graduated with a combined degree and while I practiced officially as an OT for only about 5 minutes my pediatric physical therapy work was always heavily influenced by my OT training.
What is one thing we might be surprised to learn about you?
I am Hungarian by birth and fluent in the language. While on vacation in Budapest one year, I was asked to talk with a friend of the family who had a child with a developmental disability. That talk led to a lecture series to Hungarian therapists working in pediatrics inspiring them to begin a lower extremity splinting program.