PESSARIES MASTERY Course (formerly called Pessaries Advanced)
Advanced pessary selection, fitting, and clinical reasoning
Move beyond standard pessary fitting and develop true mastery in pessary management.
Not every woman with pelvic organ prolapse is suited to a ring, cube, or Gellhorn pessary.
When standard options fail, clinicians need a deeper understanding of pelvic biomechanics, prolapse presentations, anatomy, symptoms, and patient goals to confidently select and manage more advanced pessary options.
The PESSARIES MASTERY Course is designed for experienced pelvic health clinicians who want to expand their clinical reasoning, broaden their pessary fitting skills, and successfully manage more complex prolapse cases.
This course focuses on helping you put together the entire clinical puzzle, using patient symptoms, pelvic floor function, lifestyle factors, prolapse measurements, levator ani assessment findings, and biomechanical principles to determine the best pessary solution for each individual woman.
Why Choose This Course?
Many clinicians become comfortable fitting ring, cube, and Gellhorn pessaries. However, it is often the more complex cases that challenge even experienced practitioners.
What happens when:
- The standard pessary doesn't work?
- Symptoms don't match the prolapse stage?
- The pessary repeatedly fails?
- The patient has unusual anatomy?
- Multiple compartments are involved?
- Previous fitting attempts have been unsuccessful?
This course helps you answer those questions with confidence.
You'll develop advanced clinical reasoning skills and gain practical experience with a wider range of pessary types, allowing you to support women with increasingly complex prolapse presentations.
What you'll Learn
Advanced Clinical Reasoning for Pessary Selection
Learn how to integrate:
- Patient symptoms
- Lifestyle and activity demands
- POP-Q findings
- Prolapse location and severity
- Levator hiatus dimensions
- Levator ani muscle function
- Vaginal dimensions
- Pelvic floor support characteristics
Advanced Pessary Fitting Skills
Gain practical experience with a broad range of pessaries, including:
- Hodge
- Donut
- Marland
- Dish
- Gehrung
- Shelf
- Cup
- Shaatz
- Reia
- Oval
You'll also review current best practice for:
- Ring
- Cube
- Gellhorn
This course focuses on understanding:
- Why to choose a particular pessary
- When it is indicated
- How to fit it correctly
- Troubleshooting common issues
- Long-term management strategies
Advanced Pelvic Organ Prolapse Assessment
To ensure all participants are working from the same advanced foundation, the course includes a focused review of:
- Accurate POP-Q assessment
- Prolapse staging
- Levator ani avulsion assessment
- Advanced vaginal assessment techniques
- Clinical interpretation of findings
- Speculum skills practice
For clinicians who have completed our PESSARIES FOUNDATIONS Course, this serves as valuable revision and refinement of these existing skills.
Complex Case Discussions
- Pessary selection criteria
- Troubleshooting common issues
- Follow-up protocols
- Patient self-management strategies
- Recognising complications and when to refer
These interactive discussions encourage deeper clinical thinking and often provide new perspectives on cases you may currently be managing.
Recommended Prior Learning
To gain maximum benefit from this course, participants should already be competent in:
- Internal vaginal examination
- Pelvic organ prolapse assessment
- POP-Q measurements (using speculums and POPStix)
- Ring and cube pessary fitting
- Speculum assessments
If you do not currently assess vaginal mucosa using a speculum or do POP-Q measures using a speculum and POPStix, we strongly recommend completing the Speculum Workshop before enrolling in this course. This can be done fully online or in-person if available in your region.
Ongoing Support and Certification
Learning doesn't stop when the course ends. To support your clinical practice, you will receive:
- Access to a private online support forum for 12 months.
- Monthly live Q&A sessions with Dr Melissa Davidson for 12 months.
- Ongoing troubleshooting support.
- Networking opportunities with fellow clinicians.
Course Outcomes
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Fit a significantly wider range of pessaries with confidence.
- Improve clinical reasoning around pessary selection.
- Better manage complex prolapse presentations.
- Troubleshoot challenging pessary cases.
- Apply biomechanical principles to pessary fitting
- Confidently assess when alternative pessaries may be appropriate
- Improve patient outcomes and long-term success rates
Who Is This Course For?
Professionals who can attend
This course is suitable for experienced registered health professionals who assess and manage women with pelvic organ prolapse, including:
- Nurse Practitioners
- Registered Nurses
- Clinical Nurse Specialists
- Physiotherapists
- General Practitioners
- Gynaecologists
- Osteopaths
- Women's Health Clinicians
- Other registered health professionals
We have participants from a wide range of clinical backgrounds attending this course creating a valuable multidisciplinary learning environment.
Participants typically have existing experience in prolapse assessment and pessary fitting and are looking to expand their scope into more advanced pessary management. You are able to attend this course immedately after completing the PESSARIES FOUNDATIONS Course.
Professional registration required
Participants must be registered health professionals in good standing with the relevant registration authority in their country, such as:
- Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand
- Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
- Osteopathic Council of New Zealand
- Nursing Council of New Zealand
- Medical Council of New Zealand
Experience Required
This course is designed for health professionals who are already practising in the field of pelvic health and are experienced in performing internal vaginal examinations. For this course, "experienced" means you:
- Regularly perform vaginal examinations as part of your clinical practice.
- Already provide conservative management for women with pelvic organ prolapse.
- Are confident with basic pelvic health assessments and internal examination techniques
- Already performing speculum examinations
- Able to perform POP-Q assessments using speculums and POPStix
All Genders can Attend
Health professionals of all genders are welcome to attend this course.
Learn From an Expert
Dr Melissa Davidson is New Zealand's only Specialist Physiotherapist in Pelvic Health and has more than 35 years of clinical experience.
Known for her engaging teaching style and evidence-based approach, Melissa makes complex pelvic health concepts easy to understand and immediately applicable in practice.
Read more in About Us
What Participants Say
"Fantastic opportunity to learn from an expert. As a medical professional there are limited courses available in this space." - Anna, General Practitioner
"This course gave me the opportunity to learn how to insert and remove the less common pessaries. I now feel more confident having more tools in my bag." - Valerie, Physiotherapist
"Highly recommend any clinician working with pessaries attend." Emma, Nurse Practitioner
"It was absolutely fantastic. The course was incredibly informative and significantly enhanced my knowledge of pessary management, especially for those tricky patient cases. I also really valued the opportunity to collaborate and learn alongside other health professionals. As always, Melissa delivers courses that are engaging, practical, and of the highest quality. Highly recommended." Becks, Physiotherapist
"The course was incredibly informative and significantly enhanced my knowledge of pessary management, especially for those tricky patient cases. I now have greater confidence and practical skills I can use immediately." Rebecca, Physiotherapist
"A unique advanced pessary course where you can learn about all pessary types." Genevieve, Physiotherapist
"A fantastic learning environment with a lovely multidisciplinary group. Highly recommend." Alex, Gynaecologist
"Fantastic course to practice fitting the wider range of pessaries, beyond rings, cubes and gellhorns. Valuable discussions on clinical reasoning with the casestudies." - Emma, Physiotherapist
"Excellent course. It helped me to build my confidence in management of patients with POP on a daily basis." - Angela, General Practitioner
"I would like to sincerely thank Dr Melissa Davidson for the wonderful pessary courses. Dr Davidson created a very comfortable and supportive learning environment for everyone throughout the course. She shared a wealth of knowledge and clinical experience in a way that was easy to understand, helping us achieve both the theory and practical components to a very high standard. Her teaching style was engaging, approachable, and highly informative.I would highly recommend this course to anyone interested in developing their knowledge and skills in pessary management"- Michael, Physiotherapist
"Thank you for providing this pessary course. I got everything I needed and some good contacts and access to online support if I need in the future. Well worth attending, I recommend your course to my colleagues"- Leonie, Nurse Practitioner