It was a reasonably modest event at WCPT (but then what isn't compared to the scale of the congress!), and so you'd be forgiven for missing it, but the formal launch of the new Threshold Standards for physiotherapists in Australia and New Zealand could actually be one of the most significant events to have happened in physiotherapy in recent years (to view the standards, click this link: Threshold standards Australia NZ 2015). For the uninitiated, the standards are the culmination of an enormous trans-Tasman project to align the graduating competencies and capabilities of all the schools in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. The project was commissioned by the Australian Physiotherapy … [Read more...] about Radical new graduating competencies for physiotherapists
A new Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation featuring Thomas Eakins and early photography of motion
Angela Fritz's recent blogpost on the anatomical studies of Thomas Eakins appeared in a new journal that may be of real interest to members of the Critical Physiotherapy Network. The Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation is published by the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship and aspires to: raise the consciousness and deepen the intellect of the humanistic relationship in the rehabilitation sciences. Our mission is to encourage dialogue among rehabilitation professionals, patients, families and caregivers that describe the human condition as it experiences the impact of illness or disability. We hope to highlight and illustrate the special relationship between the patient and … [Read more...] about A new Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation featuring Thomas Eakins and early photography of motion
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