Perhaps the greatest mind in the entire history of the world - well in my estimation anyway - once argued that it is the the things that are the most obvious and seemingly benign that we should focus all of our critical attention upon, because these are the things that are doing the best job of concealing the immense power that allows them to become so seemingly obvious in the first place. (If you hadn't realise already, that man is Michel Foucault). Well of all the seemingly obvious, taken-for-granted and largely unchallenged ideas currently pervading physiotherapy, evidence based practice must surely be one of the most obvious ideas needing critical scrutiny. Fortunately, a few … [Read more...] about Is it time to end the tyranny of evidence based practice?
The beauty of networks
If you'd have asked me two years ago whether I would, one day soon, travel to Norway to work with physiotherapists from the Critical Physiotherapy Network, I would have said you had been eating too many pickled herrings. But life is full of surprises, and I'm pleased to report that I've just returned to New Zealandafter spending a lovely month working at Oslo, Bergen and Tromsø, sharing ideas about the future of physiotherapy with some of the most critically interesting people I have come across in the profession. The invite to go to Norway came, in part, out of a meeting of CPN members at the In Sickness and In Health conference in Mallorca last year. Prior to that a number of our … [Read more...] about The beauty of networks
Profile: Karen K. Yoshida
While recently in Toronto, Canada, I was lucky enough to meet and interview Karen Yoshida, one of the first physiotherapists to engage in critical disability studies. Karen has been a CPN member since its inception. Karen K. Yoshida PhD is Associate Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, Rehabilitation Science Institute, Dalla Lana School of Public Health (Social and Behavioural Science Division), Mentor, Collaborative Graduate Program in Women’s Health, University of Toronto You have had a very interesting career in physiotherapy, could you discuss the time when your work started to be ‘critical’? A number of events during the early 1980’s, when I was training as a physical … [Read more...] about Profile: Karen K. Yoshida