Is Physiotherapy becoming a stronger profession or is it being diluted by others?

[Physio_Plus]

yeh physiotherapy is becoming stronger
as we know our multidiciplinary approach is the strength we got which no other professionals got.

for example; a doctor in master of neurosurgery could deal his own subjects and he he has his own boundaries and a diabetoligst has his own boundaries

but we physiotherapist can understand and go ahead all fields.
and this makes as so proud

[sharileedahl]

I agree that some of the views that physiotherapy is being "diluted" is based on the promotion of our profession. We need to sell what we do. With the strong emphasis on evidence-based practice, we have a lot of research at our hands to ensure that other health professionals recognize our knowledge base. BUT...they don't read our research (and we don't read much of theirs!). So we have to market ourselves to them. Although a doctor's referral is not required for treatment in Canada (and in many other countries), doctors are still my main referral source. So we need to ensure docs know exactly what we do. However, related to that, maybe the docs wouldn't be our main referral source and clients would self-refer if they knew what we did.

As for the comment about other services taking over like Pilates. I have to argue that point simply because retraining "core stability" is SO MUCH MORE than just having someone go through a set of exercises (particularly someone who has had an injury....i.e. our clientele). Doing exercise with good technique is important and enough for most but it's not enough for those folks with injuries.

While we and our professional associations are trying to market our profession to a larger community, as therapists we can do some pretty easy marketing by doing what we do. We have the knowledge to do a thorough assessment, to critically evaluate our findings, to plan a treatment plan etc. etc. and most importantly.....to EDUCATE our clients. Although some of them just want us to "fix them" most are really interested and reassured when we cite research, talk about a conference we were at, show them pictures in the anatomy text etc etc etc. We also need to know what everyone else (other members of our health care team) does so we can refer appropriately and bounce thoughts/ideas off each other. So basically, we need to market ourselves by taking the time to really apply all the knowledge we have!!!

[ATTIreland]

yeh physiotherapy is becoming stronger
as we know our multidiciplinary approach is the strength we got which no other professionals got.

for example; a doctor in master of neurosurgery could deal his own subjects and he he has his own boundaries and a diabetoligst has his own boundaries

but we physiotherapist can understand and go ahead all fields.
and this makes as so proud

I have enormous respect for the physiotherapy profession but I have to say I think this post shows up many of its flaws. I'll outline why below but firstly I just wish to apologise in advance if it turns out that I'm just mis-interpreting your english.

"as we know our multidiciplinary approach is the strength we got which no other professionals got...........we physiotherapist can understand and go ahead all fields"
- What I think you mean is that only physiotherapists have educational domains from varied fields that allow them to deal with a wide variety of conditions.

I would agree that physiotherapy has a broad scope of practice/education base that allows practitioners to work with patients of widely varying conditions however I would argue that a Doctor has a similarly broad (if different) education upon which they subsequently specialise.

My problem with physiotherapy/physiotherapists is that specialisation is needed as there is far too much information in each domain area for a practitioner to be expert in them all and while they may indeed specialise (sports, neuro, ortho, pulmonary, etc) this specialisation is not properly structured and more importantly is next to immpossible for the public to identify. This leads to situations where a physio working all his/her life in a stroke rehab unit can start working with a sports team at the weekend because 'I'm a physio' and yet cannot differentiate between an ACL rupture and an meniscal tear because its been 15 years since he/she did a lachmans/mcmurrays!

My point is that the reason professions such as athletic training (USA, Taiwan, South Africa), athletic therapy (Canada), sports rehabilitation & sports therapy (UK) have emerged is because physios took the view that once you're a qualified physio you can do everything regardless of what domain your work experience, post grad training and study has been in. This has led to many members of the public becoming cynical about physios as they have been treated by physios who did not have the correct post grad training/experience to meet their needs. Therefore while these other professions will never be able to compete in fields such as stroke rehab, the public has confidence in them when it comes to the area of sports injuries.

I really think that Physio as a profession needs to tighten its internal controls on who is allowed do what. Its not my place to say how this should be done but at a minimum in my own area of sports medicine I would like to see it manditory that anyone working pitchside have a certain certified level of emergency care (CPR/AED/Spinal Care/etc).

I will say that I think that the emergence of these other professions has been a positive development in that it has made the Physiotherapy profession sit up, take notice and begin to sharpen up practices that may have been overlooked in the past, which is great both for the area of sports medicine and the physiotherapy community in general.

Anyway apologies for the length of the post and any comments on the physiotherapy profession and its workings are drawn solely from my experiences here in Ireland and things may differ throughout the world.

Feel free to respond with your opinions

[nikole957]

I have enormous respect for the physiotherapy profession but I have to say I think this post shows up many of its flaws. I'll outline why below but firstly I just wish to apologise in advance if it turns out that I'm just mis-interpreting your english.

"as we know our multidiciplinary approach is the strength we got which no other professionals got...........we physiotherapist can understand and go ahead all fields"
- What I think you mean is that only physiotherapists have educational domains from varied fields that allow them to deal with a wide variety of conditions.

I would agree that physiotherapy has a broad scope of practice/education base that allows practitioners to work with patients of widely varying conditions however I would argue that a Doctor has a similarly broad (if different) education upon which they subsequently specialise.

My problem with physiotherapy/physiotherapists is that specialisation is needed as there is far too much information in each domain area for a practitioner to be expert in them all and while they may indeed specialise (sports, neuro, ortho, pulmonary, etc) this specialisation is not properly structured and more importantly is next to immpossible for the public to identify. This leads to situations where a physio working all his/her life in a stroke rehab unit can start working with a sports team at the weekend because 'I'm a physio' and yet cannot differentiate between an ACL rupture and an meniscal tear because its been 15 years since he/she did a lachmans/mcmurrays!

My point is that the reason professions such as athletic training (USA, Taiwan, South Africa), athletic therapy (Canada), sports rehabilitation & sports therapy (UK) have emerged is because physios took the view that once you're a qualified physio you can do everything regardless of what domain your work experience, post grad training and study has been in. This has led to many members of the public becoming cynical about physios as they have been treated by physios who did not have the correct post grad training/experience to meet their needs. Therefore while these other professions will never be able to compete in fields such as stroke rehab, the public has confidence in them when it comes to the area of sports injuries.

I really think that Physio as a profession needs to tighten its internal controls on who is allowed do what. Its not my place to say how this should be done but at a minimum in my own area of sports medicine I would like to see it manditory that anyone working pitchside have a certain certified level of emergency care (CPR/AED/Spinal Care/etc).

I will say that I think that the emergence of these other professions has been a positive development in that it has made the Physiotherapy profession sit up, take notice and begin to sharpen up practices that may have been overlooked in the past, which is great both for the area of sports medicine and the physiotherapy community in general.

Anyway apologies for the length of the post and any comments on the physiotherapy profession and its workings are drawn solely from my experiences here in Ireland and things may differ throughout the world.

Feel free to respond with your opinions

I agree that some of the views that physiotherapy is being "diluted" is based on the promotion of our profession. We need to sell what we do. With the strong emphasis on evidence-based practice, we have a lot of research at our hands to ensure that other health professionals recognize our knowledge base. BUT...they don't read our research (and we don't read much of theirs!). So we have to market ourselves to them. Although a doctor's referral is not required for treatment in Canada (and in many other countries), doctors are still my main referral source. So we need to ensure docs know exactly what we do. However, related to that, maybe the docs wouldn't be our main referral source and clients would self-refer if they knew what we did.

[safira218]

yeh physiotherapy is becoming stronger
as we know our multidiciplinary approach is the strength we got which no other professionals got.

for example; a doctor in master of neurosurgery could deal his own subjects and he he has his own boundaries and a diabetoligst has his own boundaries

but we physiotherapist can understand and go ahead all fields.
and this makes as so proud

As long as the education physio students stays at a high standards, imrpovements should continue!