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Former Royal Navy medic Stephen Gardiner has swapped the horrors of war zones for his new Chiropody clinic in the centre of Ilkeston. His new business "A Foot Above", Bath Street deals with everything from aching feet to managing stress in the workplace and company health and safety. Stephen started his medical career in Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, and after training at the Royal Naval Medical School in Portsmouth, underwent specialist training in trauma and emergency medicine. That was put to good use in service with the Royal Marines in Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and the second Gulf War where, in addition to British casualties, he also dealt with Iraqi prisoners. In between duties he studied and graduated as a sports therapist and surgical chiropodist and treated the famous Royal Naval Field Gun display teams and service personnel training for top sporting events. But he opted to leave service life and set up his own business in his home area with help from enterprise agency Erewash Partnership and the Royal British Legion. "I gained much wider experience in the forces than I would have done in civilian life. It's a great life but after 10 years it's good to back in Ilkeston." The premises have a reception and waiting room and two therapy rooms - one will deal with massage, reflexology, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, sports injuries and hopi ear candle treatment. The other will be used for Chiropody - the NHS offers only a limited service on this - and biomechanics, the assessment and fitting of supports for various problems. Stephen, a registered Chiropodist, will personally handle these - paying home visits to the housebound or people with mobility problems - and also deal with sports injuries and acupuncture, and colleague Jason Fletcher will practice hypnotherapy and other complimentary therapies. Stephen will be running corporate therapy days on health promotion, healthy eating and stress in the workplace which costs 67 million working days a year: Most of these will be for small to medium companies with high pressure jobs where stress can become a health problem. This will also include treatment for employees. There will also be various in-house courses for companies in first aid to train workers and bring others up to date so as to comply with new health and safety regulations and standards that come into effect from August. A member of the new Health Professionals Council, which regulates practitioners of 13 health professions, Stephen also offers courses in life-saving and emergency first aid for sports. "I believe we are the only private walk-in clinic of its type in the East Midlands that also offers corporate work and training," he said. Derby Evening Telegraph |
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Stephen takes a step up to his own clinic