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. One of the first proper articles I wrote was about the birth of the physiotherapy profession in the UK and what the founders of the profession did to legitimize massage (Nicholls, 2006). The first place I sent it to was Physiotherapy - the English journal of the CSP, and the very organisation I was writing about. They rejected the paper, not because of its academic merits, but rather (or so they told … [Read more...] about Idea 7: Start a journal called Critical Physiotherapy (2 mins)
Idea 6: Commenting on current affairs (2 mins)
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. If we truly believe that physiotherapy should have more to say about the world than just thinking about the body of the person in front of us, then surely that responsibility at least extends to the politics of the health care and educational systems that we operate in. But then why not also extend this out to broader issues that others seem happy to engage in, but we have always shied away from. Don't … [Read more...] about Idea 6: Commenting on current affairs (2 mins)
Idea 5: Offer awards for the best critical research (2 mins)
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. Any new field needs promoting and awards are a great way to encourage people to strive for a goal. Awards can be crass and elitist - but only if they are more about the style than the substance. Our awards could be a more egalitarian affair, focusing on people's contribution to the field, support for others, or the boldness of their ideas. As we mentioned in yesterday's ideas post, we have some world … [Read more...] about Idea 5: Offer awards for the best critical research (2 mins)
Growing critical physiotherapy in Brazil
The Critical Physiotherapy Network has been set up to bring people who think differently about physiotherapy together. Thus far, we have more than 110 members on four continents. We are well represented in some areas, but we’ve got a lot of work to do to reach out to physios in others. We currently only have one member from Brazil - Ana Luiza Oliveira - who is a PhD student at the University of Campinas. Ana kindly provided this brief overview of physiotherapy in Brazil. "Physiotherapy in Brazil was legally recognized in 1969. It is a new profession here. Brazilian physiotherapy is guided by the biomedical model, it is mostly a private practice, and is not part of the SUS (Brazilian … [Read more...] about Growing critical physiotherapy in Brazil
Idea 4: Profile group members (3 mins)
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. One of the best things about starting this group has been finding out about the research that other people are doing. Critical physiotherapists are such a rarefied species that it's hard to find their work and keep track of what they are doing. I've found out, for instance, that there is a huge network of physiotherapists interested in phenomenology in Scandinavia. I knew of some of the people in the … [Read more...] about Idea 4: Profile group members (3 mins)
Idea 3: A critical curriculum for physiotherapy schools (2 mins)
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. Physiotherapists like to treat the body-as-machine. They like quantitative research, clinical skills and definitional clarity, and they've held on to their biomedical principles through good times and bad. In some ways, this is understandable. Without an alternative curriculum to work from, how are people schooled in biological determinism going to know which direction to take their curriculum in? And … [Read more...] about Idea 3: A critical curriculum for physiotherapy schools (2 mins)
Idea 2: Publishing in people’s first language (2 mins)
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. The Critical Physiotherapy Network has quickly become an international collective. We have people from 17 countries who speak at least 10 different languages. While we've conducted most of our business thus far in English, that doesn't mean we don't recognize that this is problematic and try to be a bit more inclusive in the way we share our ideas. It would be a bit hypocritical for us to claim that we … [Read more...] about Idea 2: Publishing in people’s first language (2 mins)