This post from our CPN Exec member Barbara Gibson just appeared on The AMS Phoenix Project site (link) and is cross-posted here. I recently attended my first AMS Phoenix Project Conference as a new grant recipient. It was a treat to be amongst a talented group of people who are collectively dedicated to infusing compassionate care into healthcare, and who are doing so from diverse perspectives. As someone who identifies as a critical researcher I was especially intrigued by some of the comments provided by speaker Arno Kumagai related to the problem of evaluating compassion. Dr Kumagai mentioned a somewhat disturbing trend in healthcare towards measuring compassionate care utilizing … [Read more...] about Wither ‘Quality of Life’?
New: Money
A lot of really interesting attempts to change the way health care is being delivered are foundering because people can't work out how to fund them. There are certain pockets of money available: seed grants and step-change funds that get projects started, but often these are term-limited and there is rarely any chance of ongoing funding. One of the unspoken principles underpinning a lot of new models of health care (including primary care, health promotion, inter professional practice, patient-centred care), is that they will cost less, (or at least they will shift the responsibility for payment onto the individual and away from the state.) But few people have yet worked out ways to … [Read more...] about New: Money
The construction of professional identity by physiotherapists: a qualitative study
A new paper now available online from CPN members Ralph Hammond, Vinette Cross and Ann Moore Published Online: April 23, 2015 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physio.2015.04.002 Abstract The UK Frances Report and increasing societal expectations of healthcare have challenged physiotherapists to reconsider professionalism. Physiotherapy has viewed identity as a fixed entity emphasising coherence, continuity and distinctiveness. Socialisation has required the acquisition of a professional identity as one necessary ‘asset’ for novices. Yet how do physiotherapists come to be the physiotherapists they are? Design Qualitative study using Collective Memory Work. Eight physiotherapists in … [Read more...] about The construction of professional identity by physiotherapists: a qualitative study
Physiotherapy, HIV and Stigma
David Nicholl’s recent blog posts on the awkward relationship between sex and physiotherapy made me think about another aspect of physiotherapy that may be affected by this issue. To work with me on this I contacted colleagues from the WCPT HIV/AIDS special interest group within the Network for HIV/AIDS, Oncology and Palliative Care. Physiotherapy, HIV and Stigma by Darren Brown (UK), Hellen Myezwa (South Africa), and Jenny Setchell (Australia) The purpose of this post is to highlight the stigma associated with HIV and its relevance in physiotherapy. This post also offers some resources for physiotherapists to increase their understanding of HIV and discusses possible ways forward for … [Read more...] about Physiotherapy, HIV and Stigma
Staying healthy in the 18th century
Sanitary Systems Dumoulin, the physician, observed at his death that "he left behind him two great physicians, regimen and river water." Villars, the French quack, who, before the middle of the last century, made a fortune by an almost justifiable fraud, kept thousands of patients in good health by administering to them nitre dissolved in Seine water (sold at five francs a bottle), eat moderately, drink temperately, take plenty of bodily exercise, go to and rise from bed early, and avoid mental anxiety. And in the same way the English quack, Graham, whilst he presided over the "Temple of Health," prohibited to his patients the use of the "deadly poisons and weakeners of both body and soul, … [Read more...] about Staying healthy in the 18th century
Social determinants of health – are we doing enough?
Physiotherapists don't generally think our profession is 'political.' We mostly work on people's bodies, in one-to-one sessions, and few of us use our social standing as respected, orthodox health professionals to campaign for community causes. There are no physiotherapy-specific models of population health, and subjects like primary health care and health promotion are only just beginning to appear in undergraduate curricula. So while physiotherapists are experts in the assessing and treating the body-as-machine, and we are increasingly interested in people lived experiences of health and illness, we are less aware of the social determinants of health. Social determinants are those … [Read more...] about Social determinants of health – are we doing enough?
Metaphors of rhizomatic thinking
Earlier this week Mike Stewart (@knowpainmike) ran a @physiotalk Tweet Chat on the hidden influence of metaphor in physiotherapy (see here, and Mike's excellent review of the Tweet Chat here). It inspired me to think about the role metaphors play in learning. If you follow this blog regularly, you will have heard the name Gilles Deleuze. If you haven't heard this name though, it might pay to do a bit of web trawling, because some of his ideas are pretty astonishing. There have been some startling thinkers emerge from Europe over the last 100 years - Heidegger, Foucault, Sartre, Derrida, Adorno, etc. - but, for pure inventiveness, Deleuze takes the biscuit. (One tip though...I would not … [Read more...] about Metaphors of rhizomatic thinking