Dissillusioned!

Hi. I have been a physio for about three years now and I am now hitting a bit of a low. The profession is not really what I had expected and I am not sure that I want to keep going down this track. I hope that someone may have felt the same as I do now, and can offer me some much needed advice!!

I started off doing inpatients and that got to be really dull after a few months. Getting people to spit up sputum becomes a bit tedious after a while and all the patients seem to require similar treatments. And do we really need to be in ICU? My gut feeling is that if we did nothing, the nurses would still be able to suction the same amount as we get. after a half an hour of positioning and banging away. I think that in 20 years in acute hospitals, we won't be much needed, excpet in orthopaedics, and then nurses or wardsmen could probably do just as effective job as us. I don't think 4 years of university is needed to get people out of bed and walk them, and show them some basic excercies.

Then I moved onto outpatients, where it became clear that if you weren't a person with flawless salesman like skills to try and convince people you know exactly what you are doing and that it is proven to be effective, well then you weren't going to go very far. I am not sure how much of what we practice is evidence based- but I don't think that it is much (thats a whole different issue). It's hard to pretend (or do you just hope?) that you know that what you are doing is useful (don't backs just get better anyway after a few weeks?)

But I can live with myself, knowing that Chiropractors do even less than we do, but luckily for them they are master marketeers and have convinced just about everyone that they "realign subluxations" by clicking the joints of the spine to cure pretty well any ailment known to man. That's pretty impressive to most lay people, but as we know, is complete crap. And what's with that gun thing? You've got to wonder what they do in those six years that they call studying. But at least they have plenty of opportunity to study and practice at an undergraduate level.

During my four years at uni, where 80% of us wanted to go into private practice, we spent the majority of time forced to learn about hospital work and therefore missed out on a huge amount of learning in the area where we wanted to learn about most. Perhaps universities should offer alternative courses for those who don't want to work in hospitals.

Then there's rehab. Heavy lifting and only limited success. We have only small proportion of people whose outcome we affect; the others are just a waste of time and resources.

But the thing that annoys me the most is the seriousness (and sometimes arrogant) manner in which the higher management of physio departments in hospitals and universities treat junior staff/students. That their way is the only way is an immature way of dealing with things. Maybe they are worried about losing their jobs, as hospital budgets keep getting slashed as we struggle to prove our effectiveness at our jobs.

I know that some parts of the profession are hardworking and effective- like neuro and spinal injuries.

I enjoy helping people and feel very good when I can feel responsible for them improving their lives. But I don't know if I can continue this for much longer, as the feel good parts don't seem to be coming as often as I hoped.
Does anybody else feel the same?

I think everyone at some point feels like this even for a moment. With increased workloads you often have to question how important some aspects of our jobs are in order to do the other "important" jobs awaiting our attention. I agree regards the respiratory aspect to a point. I belive that in another 20 years nurses with have enveloped this role. I would question the placebo effect in outrpatients. This is usually a view held by people with limited experience - I hate to say this but Some of the best specialist outpatient therapists I know at 50 are still learning and the detail and results they get are amazing. What I get dissillusioned with is the limited resources that often forces us to do the "get out of beds and walk" bit. I could do some fantastic and rewarding work if i had the time. I'm sure i could do some reall wonders with say 5-8 patients a day only - intense - and frequent. Instead I'm personally spread covering 108 patients with say one assistant with at best seeing 21 a day - mostly assessments only. You can only see proud and happy with your job f you can do the job you've been trainned for. Be disillusioned with the system not your profession would be my advice. You get out what you put in!!