Michael Rowe – 30 DoS – Day 18

Tell us a little about your current work and study, especially how you think and practice critically.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how we use technology in teaching and learning, and especially around how uncritically we have implemented online learning over the past 18 months; it’s like we took the worst version of online learning that was possible and just went with that. I think we can do better.

Lately, I’ve also been thinking about the nature of knowledge work and the practices of knowledge workers. In particular, I’m trying to figure out how and why we do what we do, and whether this is something worth paying more attention to. My impression is that academics not only don’t have a plan for how and why we do what we do, but we don’t even realise that we don’t have a plan. Or that having a plan could be useful. Maybe this is just my own uncertainty. Maybe everyone else has a plan. I’d love to hear from you if you have a plan for how to “do” academia.

And finally, I’m interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning, and the ways in which the automation of certain kinds of physical and cognitive tasks will change clinical work. It’s early days but this is an area of practice that I believe will lead us to push back against some of our basic assumptions around how healthcare is enacted.

What is it about critical physiotherapy that appeals to you?

It’s the way that CPN members normalise the questioning and analysis of the taken-for-granted assumptions that govern our habitual behaviours and beliefs. They remind me that nothing is pre-determined and that we can choose otherwise.

How would you like to see the critical physiotherapy community develop over the next few years?

I would love to see more tangible outputs captured under the umbrella of the CPN. For example, I’d like to see more members writing for the website. More questioning of mainstream ideas at professional meetings and conferences. More books. And obviously, there needs to be a podcast. And a conference. And more courses.

How would you like to see the broader physiotherapy profession develop?

Considering my belief that much of our professional practice will be automated at some point in the future, I’d like to see physiotherapists taking seriously the question of what we think is essential to the profession, and to start moving in that direction. What is the fundamental idea of physiotherapy when you take away the tasks that we hold dear, and how is that essence different to what we find in other professions? When I extend this to what I see as a logical conclusion, I’m not sure that physiotherapy in its current form can endure.