Catherine Reid graduated as an occupational therapist in 1985. She specialised as a hand therapist in America in 1992-1994 where she worked with both orthopaedic and plastic surgeons with a team of 12 hand therapists.

 

She went on to successfully complete her hand therapy certification in 1994 and returned to Australia where she was senior clinician at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, and the Northern Hospital Melbourne, working with hand and burn injuries. This stimulated an interest in scar management, she went on to complete her Masters of Science (hand and upper limb rehabilitation). Her thesis was on scar management and with the aid of a rotary ambassadorial scholarship, the research for her thesis was completed at The Hand and Upper Limb centre (HULC), London, Ontario.

 

Since returning to Australia, Catherine has worked as a lecturer at La Trobe University, before moving to Warrnambool in 2002 with her family, where she established Western District Hand Therapy.

 

Catherine is committed to the development of the Hand Therapy profession and has been a member of the Australian Hand Therapy association since 1994. In addition to training undergraduate students Catherine has trained qualified therapists in the practice of Hand therapy. She recently retired as the Communications manager for the Australian Hand Therapy Association.

She has a particular interest in wrist injuries, and tendinopathys.