Francia qualified in 1994 at Stellenbosch University and has been working in the Winelands area for 13 of years. From 1995 - 1998 she worked as a physiotherapist in the USA in out-patient, in-patient and nursing home settings and was the head of rehabilitation in a newly created out-patient clinic in Michigan. In 1999, she returned to SA and started working in private practice, first in Swellendam and then in Stellenbosch, seeing a combination of orthopaedic and chronic pain patients. She worked in association with Dr Ina Diener from 2005 and had the privilege to have her as mentor. This enforced her passion for physiotherapy as profession and to strive for excellence and to be up to date on the latest research. She also completed the Orthopaedic Manual Therapy 1 course, which was offered over one year by the South African Society of Physiotherapy (SASP). In 2008, she acquired her MSc Physiotherapy in Orthopaedic Manual Therapy (OMT) at Stellenbosch University. In 2014, Francia completed the Pain Certification Course offered by the SASP over 3 years. This was a pivotal point for her to change her way of practicing and treating patients with chronic pain. She has done clinical supervision of final year physiotherapy students at Stellenbosch University from 1995 to present, as well as clinical supervision of the MSc students. She sees this as helping to give back to the profession and helping to develop the younger generation of physiotherapists