Every day during September we will post up an idea for you to vote on. The most popular ideas will become the things that the inaugural Organizing Committee of the Critical Physiotherapy Network focuses on in 2015. So please make sure you cast your vote at the bottom of each post.
Although the physiotherapy profession has its origins in a few common historical moments, it has diversified to an incredible degree, to the point that the World Confederation of Physical Therapists is now constituted by 106 member organisations and more than 350,000 practising members. And although there are going to be many commonalities between the kinds of practice seen in countries as diverse as Brazil, Canada, Portugal and Malaysia, there will also be some local social and cultural differences that provide lots of opportunities for critical comment. It follows that if we were more aware of how physiotherapy is practiced in another jurisdiction, it might make it easier for us to ask whether the way it is practised here is either necessary or appropriate.
So one positive action for the group would surely be to ask people from each country or region to explain how physiotherapy functions in their own area to allow us to apply some much needed critical commentary to our own situation.
Post update: please note that voting closed on 7 October 2014 (results are available here), but please feel free to post your comments in the space below.
Creating an appropriate and concise format for the ‘profiles’ would be the first step in order to achieve some consistency. But generally, I think this is a great idea and such profiles would assist our understanding of the varying contexts in which we each promote critical thinking.