Hi guys,
I am currently on my musculo outpatients at Charlies, and I'm just enjoying it! I had a patient last week who came in for mechanical neck pain, and it was her 2nd visit when she came to me. She presented rather guarded and quite wary, so I guessed she probably was still in a lot of pain/fear.
During my assessment, I explained what I was doing as I went through, especially when it came to PPIVMs. Halfway through, she started to compare my manual skills with others, and said that the student before was pushing her neck through range, and that our supervisor had really good guiding hands. So she mentioned that I was roughly in the middle. I was in a dilemma, cause I couldn't agree that the student before was not as skillful, so I tried explaining relativity in light that she was probably very acute and was in a lot of pain during her initial assessment. I knew that if I agreed that it was probably due to a lack of skill of my previous colleague, it will somehow come back and bite me one day. What patients say about other physios, they'd probably say the same about you.
I mediated the situation by explaining how difficult this technique is, and how is takes roughly 20 years to get good at it. So she decided it was all due to practice, and that it all takes a matter of time. She responded really well to the treatment thankfully! She also mentioned that she was wary of turning up that day, fearful of being handled inappropriately (manual).
This was not the 1st incident when patients asked me whether what their physio did previously was correct. Just remember, unless it's unsafe or unethical, I feel it's not in our best interest to undermine the reputation of our profession, and it's really important to defend one another. Even though you do not totally agree with what other physio may have done, never appear like they have done the wrong thing - tell them instead how good the physio was before, and how you can see the direction they have taken.
That's my two cents worth. :) What do you guys feel? Have you been in a similar situation?
Mark
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Hey,
I agree, lets not bad-mouth one another. I’m on prac at the moment and one of my patients on the ward absolutely LOVED her last physio student (Ben), so I am constantly compared to Ben! But I reckon when the next student comes along, she’s going to rave on about how much she loved Ben AND Erin (well lets hope so!). I think that patients often base their decision on how affective a treatment session was on how much they liked the physio, so it might not be that the previous student was doing the wrong/ineffective/painful treatment, the patient may just have not like them as much as they liked you. Also, knowing one person is a supervisor with 20 years experience and the other person is a student, is bound to create in the patients mind the preconception that the supervisors touch and treatment is wonderful, and ours is ‘developing’. As physios we are going to work with patients who absolutely adore us, and those who dislike us immensely (here comes the torturer/terrorist etc). I also agree that bad mouthing previous students is a bit no-no (makes the who physio school look bad)… although when I’m in Tom Price in November I’ll probably bag Marty to all the patients he hands over to me (just kidding)
Ez
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