Our esteemed Roger Kerry (@RogerKerry1) asked a great question on Twitter last week. Is a detailed knowledge of anatomy (e.g. muscle structure/innervation; bone form; neural plexi structure; lung structure; etc) necessary to be a good clinician? (Here's a link to the full Twitter conversation). Interestingly, peoples' responses broadly polarised into two binary positions with roughly two-thirds of respondents arguing a qualified "yes", that anatomy was essential, with a third arguing "no". The posted comments also make for interesting reading. But it felt to me that one of the things missing from the debate was a discussion of what anatomy does for physiotherapy, beyond giving us a … [Read more...] about Anatomy and physiotherapy
Franziska Trede – Time, Self, and the Curiously Abstract Concept of Agency – 30DoS #27
In this post, lecturer and Co-Director of the Education for Practice Institute at Charles Sturt University, Franziska Trede discusses how Steven Hitlin and Glen Elder Jnr's paper has Time, Self, and the Curiously Abstract Concept of Agency influenced her critical thinking. This paper was published in the Sociological Theory journal in 2007 by Hitlin and Elder, two sociologists. They claim that the term ‘agency’ is a slippery term and used differently dependent on goals, motivations and the epistemological paradigm of the user. They explore agency in the context of time and self and propose four heuristics of agency: existential, identity, pragmatic and life course. This paper provides … [Read more...] about Franziska Trede – Time, Self, and the Curiously Abstract Concept of Agency – 30DoS #27
New: Students
When I entered physiotherapy training in the 1980s, there was a rule at my school that said you had to be more than 5 feet tall to gain entry. I wonder what the people who had made this rule would think about my school recently graduating our first tetraplegic student? Times change, and people's priorities change too. A quick scan through textbooks from the 20th century and you will see that physiotherapy was once dominated by young white women. Now we recruit a lot more men, mature students and people from diverse cultural backgrounds. Part of the reasons for this shift has been the need for physiotherapists to be more representative of the populations they serve, and to achieve … [Read more...] about New: Students
What brings someone to the Critical Physiotherapy Network?
A few weeks ago we celebrated one year in the life of our little network and our 300th member. Since our inception we've received countless emails from people saying how glad they are that the network exists, and how nice it is that it's being run by such attractive, intelligent and wise people! (They're particularly complementary about our attractiveness). In all seriousness, it does seem as if the network is an idea whose time has come. Maybe there are enough physiotherapists now with the confidence and experience to tackle some of the thorny questions that now beset us? Maybe knowing that there are other people who think 'differently' has given people encouragement to join in? … [Read more...] about What brings someone to the Critical Physiotherapy Network?
Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?
This post originally appeared as a reflection at usr/space, after reading David's post on the profession as a gated community. It got me thinking about how the metaphors we use inform our thinking and practice. David Nicholls recently blogged about how we might think about access to physiotherapy education, and offers the metaphor of a gated community as one possibility. The staff act as the guards at the gateway to the profession and the gate is a threshold across which students pass only when they have demonstrated the right to enter the community. This got me thinking about the metaphors we use as academics, particularly those that guide how we think about our role as examiners. David's … [Read more...] about Are we gatekeepers, or locksmiths?
Teaching and learning has always been subjective
"It seems easier to far too many teachers to imagine that students do work the way machines do — that they can be scored according to objective metrics and neatly compared to one another. Schools, and the systems we’ve invented to support them, condition us to believe that there are always others (objective experts or even algorithms) who can know better than us the value of our own work. I’m struck by the number of institutions that for all intents and purposes equate teaching with grading — that assume our job as teachers is to merely separate the wheat from the chaff. And I find myself truly confused when anyone suggests to me that there is a way for us to do this kind of work … [Read more...] about Teaching and learning has always been subjective
Physiotherapy education as a gated community
In what ways does access to physiotherapy eduction function like a gated community? Because physiotherapy is such a popular programme - often one of the most popular in the entire university - we often get to choose which students we enrol. There are many ways to decide who enters the gated community and who does not. We might choose to offer places to people who represent the community they are going to serve; embody our professional values; or who will diversify the profession's profile. Most often though, we decide on the basis of academic performance and the evaluation of an interview or other face-to-face encounter. The rationale is that physiothearpy is an intensive, complex … [Read more...] about Physiotherapy education as a gated community