Marking the launch of the new edition of the Journal of Humanities and Rehabilitation - itself a notable and new creative venture - this post is about creativity. Physiotherapy ought to be a vehicle for all sorts of creative expression, given that so much of what we do is about bodies and movement. I know many physiotherapists who love dance, martial arts, singing, performance art and other forms of physical expression, as well as creative thinkers, ideas people, artists, musicians, poets, photographers and writers of fiction. But there are few creative outlets for their work within physiotherapy itself. It seems there is physiotherapy, and creative expression is something that … [Read more...] about New: Creativity
New: Promotion
New: Anatomy
These 30 Days of September posts are supposed to be provocative. Not the kinds of provocation that comes from empty gestures and tired clichés (hopefully not, at least). But the kind of provocation that contain grains of truth (cliché-related humour). So, fair warning, what I'm about to say may upset some people. But I'm really only trying to articulate what should be reasonably obvious by now to anyone with a mobile device and an Internet connection. So here goes. A day will come soon, when students will no longer need anatomy taught in the traditional way: with endless lectures full of mind-numbing names and abstract mechanics. Students will no longer need to stay up late into … [Read more...] about New: Anatomy
New: Sharing
A few weeks ago, the Executive of the Critical Physiotherapy Network discussed the Terms and Conditions we wanted to place around membership access to our shiny new website. We wanted to establish and encourage some standards of behaviour, because one of our cardinal principles is that people should feel safe within this site to express their ideas, however controversial, critical or radical. At the same time, we wanted to stand up for some particular virtues: inclusive language; participatory dialogue; and fearless minoritarianism. Striking the right balance in defining 'light touch' regulations is surprisingly difficult, but only really if you are bound by conventional beliefs about … [Read more...] about New: Sharing
New: Assessment
For this post, we're linking up with Michael Rowe in South Africa and his excellent site /usr/space. Michael is a physiotherapist and educator in South Africa, with a passion for teaching and learning. He is an active member of the Critical Physiotherapy Network and a regular blogger on health care education, pedagogy and technology-informed learning. Earlier this week, Michael posted a blog exploring the possibilities of assessing teams, not individuals. Assessing teams instead of individuals Patient outcomes are almost always influenced by how well the team works together, yet all of the disciplines conduct assessments of individual students. Yes, we might ask students who … [Read more...] about New: Assessment
New: Methods
Consider this list: Participatory action research Ethnography Case study Narrative ethnography Discourse analysis Grounded theory Visual methods Feminist Critical humanism Photo-voice Queer theory Mixed method Performance ethnography Constructivist Critical arts-based inquiry Oral history Online ethnography Conversation analysis Memory work Interpretive phenomenology Autoethnography Q methodology Ethnomethodology Historiographic Institutional ethnography... This list is just a sample of some of the different approaches to data collection, text generation and analysis that are part of the growth of qualitative, and theoretically and … [Read more...] about New: Methods
New: Reflection
There's a phrase that I've come to use over and over again in recent years whenever I've presented at conferences or talked to people about the research I do, and I use it because it beautifully encapsulates what I think is perhaps the main problem now facing the physiotherapy profession. It comes from a book written by a New Zealand doctor who is part European and part Māori. His name is Glenn Colquhoun, and he's written some fantastic books about health care, using poetry and prose to express his ideas (see this link to his work). In one slim volume titled 'Jumping Ship,' Colquhoun describes his experience coming to terms with his Māori heritage. He spent a few years in the far … [Read more...] about New: Reflection