Originally Posted by
Physioindeed
I recently got asked how I managed to get HPC registration as I "only" trained in Germany. Supposedly that is a shorter and less valuable education over there.
It actually got my blood boiling!
German Physiotherapists are training for three years. After that the German Qualification is sufficient enough to be recognized in all european countries apart from Netherlands (where all Physios have to learn for four years) and apart from our lovely Great Britain.
Why? In general I would have thought that the quality of the german health system is excellent, (why is it that many people travel to germany for difficult operations, why can every patient in germany see a german doctor, a specialist, a physio in one week whilst to do so in England you will have to go through a three to six month waiting procedure?)
A nother point: the english education system is not really know to be one of the best or superior to any other European training and education. ( I actually read this week in an english newspaper that England supposedly has the worst education system in Europe. So is physiotherapy the big exception then??)
I graduated best of my year in Germany (the last time I applied in Germany I got to pick from five jobs - however when I tried to get HPC registration it took me 18!! month! and armsful of forms to fill out plus quite a lot of money)
The German system is much less rigid than the English.
After you graduate you have gained a lot of practice already during the placements with in your training (in total the equivalent of one year) In their first job they are therefore trusted with their own case load straight away. In Germany there is no such thing as junior and senior etc...(and we still survive and provide what I call excellent physiotherapy service).
Ideally the newcomers will have supervision but in the end of the day it always will come down to personal motivation of the physiotherapist and talent if somebody delivers good treatments.
Personally I think the rotational junior positions in hospitals are causing more hassel at the moment then it is worth. Seeing that because of them many newcomers can't gain any experience at all! Why not react, change the education, make it more praxis orientated so that you don't need the obligational two years rotations?
I have been in English hospitals to see how things are done here. unbelievable!! I was very impressed though with the amount of paperwork english physiotherapists achieved to fill out!
Seeing the results of German and English Physiotherapy treatment I am not entirely sure all this difficulties put in the way of newstarters are actually helping the quality of service....
what do you think?
kind regards
Annette
I've trained in Germany and have been working in the UK for the last 4 years and I have to say I really love it! But it took a long while to 'forget' about the long registration procedure. I've done a required adaptation time and for me personal it was a good time to get back to basics and to gain some teaching. You see, a lot of people have no idea about training in other countries and lots of my friends got huge eyes when I told them about the German training. I actually never had anybody telling me that my training is 'not good enough'. It was more about to intensify topics which weren't that big in my training. I can totally understand your anger about certain behaviour from people and their feeling of 'superior' but just face it: None of them would get their bums into gear to try to work in Germany. I'm now considering to get my NZ registration.....we will see how that is going to be
who has got UK registration AND NZ registration please don't hesitate to tell me all about it
Re: German challenges: are English Physiotherapists really the best in Europe???
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