CPN at WCPT – update

As I write this, we’ve just completed the second of three main CPN events that were planned for the WCPT congress here in Cape Town.

On Sunday morning, eight of the nine CPN members met up for a strategic planning meeting, where we talked about how the CPN might develop in the coming years.  More on this after the CPN Salon on Wednesday.

The second event was the Focused Symposium at the congress itself.  To recap, the WCPT only awards a limited number of Focused Symposia at each congress, and so we were very fortunate that our application to hold a symposium on critical thinking was accepted.  I chaired the session and Mershen Pillay, Viviana Silva, Jenny Setchell and Barbara Gibson delivered 15 minute talks on their work.  About 200 people attended and we had some fabulous conversations, comments and questions from the floor.

You can download a full copy of the text of our talk here, and the Powerpoint slides here.

What was really striking about the meeting was perhaps the reception we received.  We had expected a small number of attendees, but had been put in one of the two massive ballrooms, so were pleasantly surprised that so many people came.

What also struck us were the number of people who either knew of the network, or came along out of interest and stayed for the whole 90-minute session.

I heard a great story of two Singaporean undergrad students who came along thinking we were talking about ICU critical care, but stayed because they absolutely loved what the presenters were saying.  They’ll go back to their school now and perhaps never think of physiotherapy the same way again.

As well as the Exec meeting and the Symposium, CPN members have been delivering talks and posters and involved in lots of conversations with others who might not have known about our work before.  So all-in-all, it’s been a very fruitful few days.

On Wednesday we have our Salon and are fully booked with people from all over the world.  It will be a great celebration.  If you’d like to hear a recorded presentation of the State of the CPN talk I’ll be giving in the morning, you can find it here.  I’ll report back on the rest of the proceedings later in the week.