Late last week, the Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand (PBNZ), released a statement titled Serious concerns about physiotherapists conduct (currently available on their website here, the full text is also reprinted at the bottom of this post). Tthe statement was prompted after the suspension of a New Zealand physiotherapist for being found guilty of professional misconduct reached the news. The male clinician was found guilty of having sex with a client (details here). He was subsequently fined $5,000NZD, ordered by the Board not to treat female patients, had his practice supervised every fortnight and complete a course about proper professional boundaries, but he was not struck … [Read more...] about No sex please, we’re physiotherapists*
Touching on something important
In a fantastic comment on my latest blogpost in this mini-series looking at the innate and largely unspoken sensuality of physical therapy, Eric Kruger posted up a video from Youtube which shows Ken Cole and Rajesh Khemraj in a tutorial looking at the SI Joint at a 2014 NAIOMT Annual General Meeting (link to the original post and Youtube video here). In the comment, Eric concentrated on the question of the power asymmetry that exists in therapeutic practice. I wanted to extend this discussion on a little here, so iIf you haven't read it already, I strongly advise looking at it before reading on. Lets take a moment to deconstruct the video Eric posted up a little. Here we have three … [Read more...] about Touching on something important
SNAGS for anterior chest pain that are not in the textbook
Following on from my post the other day (No sex please, we're physiotherapists), I thought I would recount one of my favourite stories that illustrates just how implicit sexuality is in the work that physiotherapists do. A few years ago, I interviewed Brian Mulligan, the famous Kiwi physiotherapist, whose work has made him one of the world's most well known and well regarded practitioners. His Mobilisation with Movement approach to musculoskeletal physiotherapy, developed in the 1980s, is now followed by thousands of physiotherapists, and he is still teaching and examining all over the world. More than that though, he is one of nicest people you could care to meet; genuinely charming and … [Read more...] about SNAGS for anterior chest pain that are not in the textbook
No sex please, we’re physiotherapists
The physiotherapy profession has a rather odd relationship with sex and sensuality. On the one hand, it lies at the heart of everything that physiotherapists do, on the other it is almost completely invisibly; un-theorized, glanced over in graduate programmes, and almost invisible in models that try to explain what physiotherapy is and isn't. Over the course of the next few blogposts, I want to tackle some of the issues that surround sex and physiotherapy and see if we can't develop a more mature appreciation for it's everyday role in defining our professional subjectivity. To begin with, we should acknowledge the role that sex played in the formation of the physiotherapy profession. … [Read more...] about No sex please, we’re physiotherapists
Critical physiotherapy – best of the web update
Here are a few highlights from the web over the last couple of weeks that might be of interest. This Longform article Autobiography of a body tells a really powerful story of a young woman's struggle with sexuality and disability: "Grealy visited the Sex Maniacs’ Ball in London, an annual event hosted by the Outsiders, an organization that promotes sexual freedom for the disabled. There she discovered that her sexuality was “part of something I am, a state of being rather than a state of action. And that’s true whatever my body looks like from the outside.” This piece from The Washington Post, features Sam Tsemberis, a psychologist whose radical solution to the problem of … [Read more...] about Critical physiotherapy – best of the web update