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

I’ve never taken things particularly seriously, either academically or living with muscular dystrophy.  Having stumbled into physio—literally, I kept falling over, so they made me go—I started thinking sociologically while in the waiting room.  I found that I could do two things at once, picking apart my personal experience of disability while poking holes in the Serious Science of Physical Therapy.  Why all this goal setting, why all this paperwork?  I had been reading a lot of critical theory, you know, Foucault, Heidegger, and the like, without a place to make sense of it.  Though I had never really thought of myself as a disabled person, as I started going through the disability … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 23 – Thomas Abrams

Hi everyone. My name is Lester Jones and I am a pain physiotherapist and educator. I have spent a long time at university and in the clinic exploring human health and behaviour including 4 years of psychology and a Masters degree in pain. If I had been driven in a different way, I would have spent that time doing a PhD - thankfully I wasn't - but now I find myself back at university doing just that with the amazing research group at Judith Lumley Centre. In my research, I am interested in the multiple dimensions of pain and how we can work with the complexity in different contexts. I was the inaugural chair of the APA National Pain Group and currently, I am on the committee for the … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 22 – Lester Jones

I have a background in dancing which was my original reason to study physiotherapy. I graduated in 2008 after which I found a new inspiration in geriatric physiotherapy. I had a very inspiring philosophy teacher at secondary school (or lukio in Finnish) and ever since I’ve had a fascination with philosophical thinking (fun fact: every Finnish lukio student has to take at least one philosophy course). The fascination has proved incurable, at least ever since I met my philosophical “enabler” and revolutionary soul mate who introduced me to dialectics from Hegel to Adorno. In 2011 we packed our belongings (mostly books) in a cheap van a moved from Finland to the UK, where I have finally been … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 21 – Anna Rajala

I am is a physiotherapist specialized in musculoskeletal disorders and I work at the Department of Physiotherapy, Haute Ecole de Santé Vaud (HESAV) in Switzerland and in private practice. In 2010, I did a specialization in Manual Therapy and finished an MSc in Physiotherapy at Brighton University in 2015. I am currently doing a PhD on the association between spinal motor behaviour and psychological factors in CLBP patients. I am also doing research examining beliefs about back pain in Switzerland. As an educator, I am particularly interested in helping students to be better critical thinkers, and I love challenge their beliefs about physiotherapy. Particularly, I try to shift their focus … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 20 – Guillaume Christe

I'm an Associate Professor and Departmental Chair in the Department of Physiotherapy at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) where I conduct research into the use of digital technologies in the classroom and their influence on teacher and student relationships. My Ph.D. evaluated the use of technology-mediated practices for clinical education and led to the development of design principles for blended learning environments in health profession education. More recently I have been developing an area of research on the impact of artificial intelligence in clinical practice and health professions education. I believe that machine learning will have an important influence on … [Read more...] about 30DoS 2018 Day 19 – Michael Rowe