äMedicine convinces us that we can understand the human condition biologically. Pain teaches us otherwise. Pain, as we know it today, bears all the hallmarks of a subjective phenomenon that can only be understood by the person experiencing it. Yet even this belief has a history; a history that is closely tied to the genealogy of the physiotherapy profession. Tony Ballantyne has explored the way pain became a vehicle for social reformers after the 17th century, shaping many of the health and social welfare reforms that were to follow. Ballantyne argues above that pain narratives were a powerful way for humanitarians to promote the belief that the state should take responsibility for … [Read more...] about The social construction of pain
Decolonizing health professional education
A new paper from Mershen Pillay (CPN member) and Harsha Kathard titled Decolonizing health professional education has just been published by the African Journal of Rhetoric. The paper explores how higher education practice is failing the majority population in South Africa, and offers some critical insights into the nature of 'othering' that is prevalent in many health education programmes around the world. Abstract We argue that there is an urgent need to transform how we educate health professionals in South Africa. We focus on Audiology and Speech-Language Therapy, which are health professions that manage people with communication disorders and swallowing difficulties. Our … [Read more...] about Decolonizing health professional education
Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?
This post was published earlier on Michael Rowe's blog. Micheal is a member of the Critical Physiotherapy Network and has given permission to reproduce his blogpost here. David Nicholls at Critical Physiotherapy recently blogged about how we might think about access to physiotherapy education, and offers the metaphor of a gated community as one possibility. The staff act as the guards at the gateway to the profession and the gate is a threshold across which students pass only when they have demonstrated the right to enter the community. This got me thinking about the metaphors we use as academics, particularly those that guide how we think about our role as examiners. David’s … [Read more...] about Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?