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
Physiotherapy needs more than just a radical curriculum
A few days ago, I blogged about the new graduating competencies that will begin to be used in Australia and New Zealand in the the next few years (click here to read this post.) To me, they represent the kind of radical (critical) thinking that is so desperately needed in the physiotherapy profession. As I mentioned in the blogpost, the new competencies are drawn - almost verbatim - from the CanMED system which has been operating in Canada since 2000. The CanMED system was based on public consultations that took place as far back as the 1980s in Ontario (see Nuefeld et al, 1998) which pointed to the fact that 'scientific knowledge has brought large benefits to patients in clinical … [Read more...] about Physiotherapy needs more than just a radical curriculum
Podcast – Prof Teresa Mangum – The Future of the Academic and Public Humanities
This podcast if the first in a series of lectures on the future of the humanities in public life. The series began on 28 November 2014 with a leture by Professor Teresa Mangum, Director of the Obermann Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Iowa. Professor Magnum talks about how the humanities are being systematically undermined by discourses that privilege economic efficiency and utilitarian learning. There are a lot of parallels with the way we are seeing the long-valued capabilities of empathy, caring and altruism in education and health care practice being replaced by capitalistic notions of measurable cost and benefit. Abstract: In the United States, the pressures on the … [Read more...] about Podcast – Prof Teresa Mangum – The Future of the Academic and Public Humanities
Critical physiotherapy curios – updates, ideas and new postings
Research We have to start with this. WCPT has published a list of the 15 most influential trials in physical therapy. I loved the fact that they used a qualitative process to ascertain which blinded, controlled and randomised clinical trial they found most influential. No hint of irony there then! Fatemeh Rabiee, Anne Robbins and Maryam Khan's article in Health Education Journal Gym for Free: The short-term impact of an innovative public health policy on the health and wellbeing of residents in a deprived constituency in Birmingham, UK is well worth a look if you're interested in how community-based health interventions might work for people in marginalised communities. A paper … [Read more...] about Critical physiotherapy curios – updates, ideas and new postings