I have never not been a physiotherapist in a long and eclectic career that has seen me living and working on three continents and both within the profession (as a clinician, service manager, academic and researcher) and outside (in national disability policy, disability data development and as a non-government organisation advisor). Throughout my career, the education at Addenbrooke’s Hospital School of Physiotherapy in the 1970s has been a sound foundation for lifelong education; both formal and informal. I started a degree in Psychology (Unfinished due to meeting my husband and migrating to Australia.) which led to a better understanding of the relationship between body and mind. An MSc … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 29 – Catherine Sykes

In our everyday practice, we often operate on the assumptions we have about our patients, our professions and the medical systems we work in. I do a lot of work with medical students and resident trainees, and I love the challenge of scratching at the underbelly of these assumptions within my positivistic environment. Email address: Naomi.Eisenberg@uhn.ca Location (city/town, country): Toronto, ON, Canada Current position(s): Vascular Database Manager/Research Assistant, Vascular Surgery Relevant critical publications: Eisenberg NR. Post-structural conceptualizations of power relationships in physiotherapy. Physiother Theory Pract 2012 Aug; (6):439-446. … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 28 – Naomi Eisenberg

Although originally American, I now identify more as an Australian. By the way, the portrait is of me by a patient, not by me. In my first couple of years as a Physical Therapist in the US, I didn’t feel I knew enough or could do enough to be paid for what I was doing. I even went so far as my asking for a reduction in my pay – it was the 1970’s after all. It came to a choice of finding a way to be more effective or do something else. One venture into the ‘something elses’ was an informal apprenticeship with an 80 y/o Appalachian man making split-oak baskets and traditional chairs with hickory bark seats. For better or worse, I was accepted into what was then usually referred to as a … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 – Neil Tuttle

I have been interested in the social and political aspects of anything my whole adult life – so when it came to researching physiotherapy and healthcare I guess it made sense that I followed these perspectives. This including co-founding the CPN with Dave Nicholls and Barb Gibson. After completing my PhD which used weight stigma as a forum to investigate the socio-political aspects of physiotherapy. I have been fortunate enough to join with two wonderful and hugely influential teams for the past three years. One is super-critical and is at the University Toronto headed by Prof Barb Gibson (long term CPN executive member) and the other is led by Prof Paul Hodges at The University of … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 26 – Jenny Setchell

As a physio in the US, I have spent 8 years providing care in the public education system and private schools serving children with developmental delays and their families, 10 years in traditional outpatient care primarily serving patients with neuromusculoskeletal complaints, and I am now about to begin my 7th year in the home health setting mostly serving patients with chronic cardiovascular, respiratory, and neurological health complaints. When I started my journey as a fresh/green physio, I recognized that my relationships with the children I was working with was of utmost importance as I tried to motivate 2- and 3-year-olds to engage in (fun!) play that would be … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 25 – Keith Waldron

It is almost 40 years since I became an occupational therapist. I was a student in Liverpool and then a clinician, first in a large university teaching hospital in Oxford, then in a regional rehabilitation centre in Saskatchewan, Canada, and subsequently in a rural area of Saskatchewan. After some years in this role I decided to upgrade my education, so returned to the UK, and the University of Southampton, to undertake an MSc in Rehabilitation Studies. It was here that I met the work of critical disability theorists, such as Oliver and Barnes, whose work resonated so strongly with my own experiences of living and working with disabled people that I can recall sitting up in bed, reading … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 24 – Karen Whalley Hammell