Lynn Chapman Award Winner – Roland Lavallee – 2018

Lynn Chapman Award Presentation

I have the distinct pleasure of presenting our inaugural Lynn Chapman Mentorship award.

This award was initiated in 2016 to honour the late Lynn Chapman, an outstanding physiotherapist who passed away in 2015. It was realized by her peers, and the Orthopaedic Division of Canadian Physiotherapy Association (CPA), that she was an outstanding leader, who did much for the profession locally and nationally, with little regard for direct name recognition. Her main professional motivation was always to promote and facilitate quality physiotherapy performance which translated into safe and beneficial patient care.
Lynn never needed to be recognized on a center stage yet there are few orthopaedic physiotherapists in the country that have not been directly or indirectly influenced in a positive way by her tireless and passionate acts of intelligent dedication to the profession.

Our recipient this year embodies the essence of what this award stands for.

Good mentorship requires a skilful mix of encouraging support and the ability to challenge. It requires a passion for teaching and giving up countless hours to encourage younger physiotherapist to engage in the system. It is not for the weak of heart but the rewards are great.

Our Recipient’s colleagues and students have offered an abundance of accolades and here is what they would like to share:

For 28 years of our relationship he has lived, breathed, and shown a passion for professional and personal mentorship. My relationship with him has made me a better physiotherapist but much more importantly a better person, and for that I will never be able to thank him enough.

I consider him not only a great clinician, a great teacher, and a great mentor, but also a great friend. No one has invested more in my professional growth and mentoring than him.

He has allowed me to witness him mentoring the entire gamut of the physio profession. From students trying to get in, to masters students, to new grads, to people engaged in the exam process, to senior orthopedic instructors, all the way up to the head of the University. He is extremely deserving of this award.

I have had the privilege of having him as one of my mentors for the last ten years of my career. It is impressive to see his generosity with his time regardless if you are a new graduate or a veteran physiotherapist.

He has been dependable as a mentor, offering his time and his knowledge outside of regular hours in order to help keen physiotherapists in their path to either further academic attainment or bettering their orthopaedic skills and reasoning.

To be a mentor means that you must sacrifice your own personal time as well as understand that this comes with little to no additional pay. He embraces this with open arms, as it is clear that he is passionate about fostering the development of the next generation of physiotherapy leaders.

It is my pleasure to introduce our Lynn Chapman Award Recipient, Mr. Roland Lavallee

— Presented by Vince Cunanan

Vince Cunanan & Carol Kennedy accepting the award on Roland’s behalf