Shannon Byrne – Sport Therapy Course Graduate to Clinic Owner in One Month

Shannon Byrne finished her Sport Therapy course in 2020 and started Rebound Injury Clinic in the same year.

Shannon is 22 years of age.

“Through the sport therapy course I actually ended up getting a job in a clinic in Ranelagh. One of the managers from the clinic had put out a post to say she was looking for a student to train in and wanted to interview people from the second-year sport therapy course class. I actually applied for that and I got the job there.

I stopped working there in August after I graduated and opened my own clinic. It was during the pandemic, just kind of on a whim. This was supposed to be a goal for like 10 years time.”

Working out of a gym in Finglas run by a Dublin Intercounty Football player, Shannon’s quick start led to quick success and she has already hired a second employee. That employee is a qualified sports masseur who, at the behest of Shannon, is now starting her journey into Portobello Institute’s BSc (Hons) Sports Therapy degree course.

“She’ll be doing her work experience and shadowing me. It’s something I actually really love. She’s done massage but she wouldn’t have done certain techniques that we would have done in Portobello.

I’m already teaching her a couple of different techniques that she can use with her massage clients that I would have learned over the years from shadowing different therapists and stuff.”

Shannon is a recent sport therapy course graduate and is sending her employee into her own sport therapy course, but it doesn’t end there. She’s also receiving applications from current second and third-year sport therapy course students for work experience.

The opportunities are there and having found her own way through the course, she knows how to guide those applying.

Ahead of her Leaving Cert exams, Shannon had initially applied for CAO courses before deciding to do a PLC course. She wasn’t certain about committing four years to another degree that she wasn’t definitely interested in.

“I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I definitely wanted to work in a private practice rather than in a hospital so I had completely turned against the physio option and wanted to do something more like a physical therapy or a sports therapy to be working in private practice with sports people rather than being in hospital.”

Taking the PLC course route meant that Shannon wasn’t tied to anything long-term. But it wasn’t a sport therapy course or degree so it limited her options afterwards. She couldn’t get accepted into other courses in Ireland from her PLC and only had offers for courses in the Netherlands.

After taking a year out of edcuation, she eventually learned of Portobello Institute through another Colaiste Íde student.

Her reserach told her it was the perfect course for her.

Shannon interviewed with Dr. Susan Giblin who advised her that her success in Colaiste Íde would allow her to take advantage of Advanced Entry into Year 2 of the Sports Therapy course. This meant that Shannon could complete her Level 8 Degree in less than two years.

“I was delighted with that.

Not only are you saving on the fees for a year but you’re getting the degree a year earlier as well. And I’ve actually got a twin sister and she started her degree straight out of school and she was saying ‘Ah I’ll have my degree before you’ and we ended up getting it the same year so that was nice too.”

As one of a pair of competitive twins, Shannon took pleasure in winning one over on her sister. But she was even happier with the course she had found. Not only was she delighted with the course but she was even happier to avoid having to do a four-year degree that would limit her options and waste much of her time.

“I found the course great.

I absolutely loved all the lecturers.

Because the classes were so small, it made it so much easier to have a chat with the lecturers if you were stuck on something. They were so much easier and accessible compared to my sister’s experience in University where the lecturers didn’t even know her name.”

The two-year Sport Therapy course meant she could then apply to do Physiotherapy at a later point if she chooses to.

Physiotherapy remains an option for Shannon today. She’s likely too busy running her successful clinic in Finglas or offering opportunities to current Portobello Institute Sports Therapy course students though.