If I could return to the past...

[bernard]

Hello SomaSimplers,

It seems that some of us have some regrets about their professions?
If you had a second chance, what will be your choice?

[nari]

That is a tricky one, Bernard.
Would we want to change the past, knowing what we know now?

When I left school I did physiotherapy because there seemed to be nothing that 'caught' my full attention. The vocational counsellor talked me into it. I lasted 18 months; the drudgery, dependence on doctors' every whim, what seemed to be useless activities, almost all of them passive, annoyed me intensely. I became a research technician and played around with the livers of Xenopus laevis ( a frog) and lungfish urine; then had a lovely time playing with DNA. Nothing like producing your own glucky, dense strands, yards of it, out of one teeny substrate.

But the university lost funding and jobs went flying. I came back to phsiotherapy after thirteen years, found some useful things were being done, and fell by chance into neurosciences (acute). I have survived since then.

In the early 60s when I left school,I wanted desperately to be a commercial artist. My mother said that was not a secure career - and she was right. I have drawn since I was three and still love it.

But all is not so bad - chronic pain is the most exciting aspect of physiotherapy I know of (and I have done it all, except paeds) and the future looks good for those who take it on seriously. But retirement will be looming for me, so I hope younger PTs will take on the challenge of the brain.

Regrets? Not really - just mild frustration at times at the closed minds of some physios; and the older they get, the worse they get - so I will refuse to become a narrow-minded antique. :lol:

Nari

[emad]

Hi Bernard &Nari:

an excellent topic .

however , until now i am practisng physio since 4 years only .

i think a lot , when look back , but all concerning physio dealing with patients .

here , peoples are so bad ,uncooperative ,aggressive even they can attack any one , just for another doctor said to them that i or another doctor had done something bad for thier patient .

if gone back , i think i may do to patients what they want , even now i can not do what they want , they usually wantsc the wrong .

cheers
emad

[emad]

Hi Bernard:

thank you for your advice.

how i could do the best if The Other refuses the best , he wants the most bad :?:
yes , you are right listenig is extremely important .

bernard wrote

move with the wind as the waves in ocean

it seems so :!: :!: :!: :!:

Love beats hate and violence


sometimes it is considered weakness, however i belive you.

cheers
emad

[ian s]

http://www.thedoctorscoach.co.uk/bmjarticles1.htm

there are some very good articles here regarding career development and life work balance .....I wish I had known about them years ago ....
The article 'are you a square peg in a round hole ' rang a lot of bells with me!

There are aspects of Physio that could be very interesting and very valuable --most of this is I believe is in the pain science field and the development of reasonable interpersonal skills .

On the whole Physio has been a really useful thing to be involved in but most of what I have found to be personally interesting has come from reading outwith the main physio texts and manual therapy schools of thought . Many schools of thought seem myopic .

On the whole my rational brain says Physio is not a good choice to bring a family up on due to poor promotion prospects and limited earning potential .....I don't think it encourages much creativity or lateral thinking so overall I think I would have been better off doing medicine (part time GP would be the most sensible thing) I would now be happy being involved in part time work with people and doing much more of the things that inspire me -- writing, learning music , family climbing etc .
I enjoy looking at more complex problems other than routine orthopaedics but it can be demanding and draining -hence the link to self awareness and survival techniques .

ian

[nari]

Hi Ian

I would like to second your remark about reading outside mainline texts and physio-oriented manuals for interest.

Australia's physios are reportedly in the international forefront of updated clinical practice - but to me many are myopic as well as to their role as a physio. Most are strictly Cartesian in their approach. Until that changes, we may slip backwards; I read a long paper by a chiropractor who has been researching on the neuromatrix/homeostasis dichotomy; and he is well onto the trail of Melzack and Wall's work, and writing to educate others.

nari

[ian s]

Hello Nari,

can you remember the article by the Chiro man??
I remember when I graduated thinking the only thing to do was to escape to Aus and learn from people at the 'cutting edge'.......Many from Aus come here to teach the latest things ......
I am glad I didn't !! You have some notable exceptions of course and I really like all of Max Zussmans papers but few read them or take any of it on board ....
Much more popular is the stuff on muscle imbalance etc
Perhaps if explain pain ,TIP books and Damasio's trilogy were mandatory texts things might be different!
The main influence for me has been Gifford and Butler with links to a vast array of interesting and relevant literature . The conventional literature seems largely irrelevant to my caseload .....The society we live in is dominated by the stone ager in the fastlane scenario ....
I feel that David is on the right lines -- our best role is to understand tissue sensitiivity -- complex ...tissue mechanics seems to be pretty straightforward in comparison........
I continue to be interested in the human condition so many people have a lot to contribute . My current favourite is Nicholas Humphrey (his website is excellent with things to download ). The mix of biology, philosophy and psycholgy interests me because he always asks the question why .....In physio I always think of adaptive and maladapitve mechanisms- maybe this is a way of reducing iatrogenic disability . The mind made flesh is my current favourite read ---the essays on the evolutionary basis of placebo and the deformed transformed are particularly brilliant .

[Diane]

If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change anything except perhaps the timing. I jumped into physiotherapy at the tender age of 17 (a bit too young perhaps to take on a professional career, a few burn marks happened ..) , But I just 'knew' I wanted to use my hands to work with people. That particular neuromodule was in full charge and pushed me through the program, even though I developed strong doubts and wondered at the end how I had ended up in a line of work where I would almost never use my hands. I wondered if I had missed the mark and landed in some circle of Dante's Inferno.

After I graduated and got a job, shortly after my twentieth birthday, the inner push went away and I took time out to grow up. I learned a whole lot of things about a whole lot of things, taking years off work at a time and attending university. I did pre med, thinking that PT had been a mistake (and learned I was actually good at science and math). Somehow I saw how bigger the mistake might have been! (was almost accepted but balked at being reinterviewed.) Oddly, missed PT when I wasn't busy doing it. Would get fed up after a year or two of working (at routine hospital type jobs) and absolutely had to go away to use my mind.

Found myself turned completely around and enrolled in a uni art program for two years. Studied sociology and learned about politics. It all did wonders to help me grow perceptive functions. Worked part time at a private PT practice and was an artist part time. Got laid off. Drifted. Got tired of being poor. Tried sales, absolutely loathed it. Acknowleged that I missed physiotherapy when I wasn't doing it. Went back to hospital work, recommitted to it (by now age 30.) Planned to leave but in a more enlightened fashion. Dug in and started to learn the work that had chosen me. Studied even. Started to take workshops. This was around 1980.

Serendipitously encountered a workshop by an osteopathic physician who taught traditional osteopathic philosophy and manual techniques. I moved away to be closer to his school, where I've attended now for twenty years.
(Just was there this past weekend for an entire weekend class on the vagus nerve.)

Life has come together finally (as it will if one makes it to middle age...) I feel that all my interests and passions and questions and pursuits can be met under the umbrella of PT. It is stretchy enough to contain me, and whatever I might wish to examine or learn. PT is about people, and I reckon that a profession that is about people requires a professional who has a wide scope of interests, is curious to learn from patients about what they are interested in, (hard to treat someone if you don't know how they tick and they are still feeling too formal with you) and last but not least, a good pair of trained hands with which one can establish rapport directly with tissue and the parts of the brain that run it.

And I'm SO glad that PT is starting to be more than ever before about the brain! I will be able to come out from under the bunker some day and not feel attackable for all the intuitive, non-protocolesque approaches I've used all these many decades. PT is about life-long learning, which is what I've always thought life was about anyway, so no contradiction.

Looking back I can see that this relationship I've had with PT was jumped into too young, was frought with misunderstandings and stormy leavings and reflective re-entries, like a teenage marriage. Now, like an actual marriage that has endured, it brings peace of mind, a sense of structure to life, and no sense of entrapment at all.
Cheers,
Diane

[henryryry]

Like most people, I don't regret anything from my career as a PT, since "life can only be lived forwards, but understood backwards."

I started PT school at 17 and I had no idea what a PT was let alone what a PT did. All I knew was that it had something to do with sports and stroke. As a result, I paid little attention at uni, opted in skipping classes, partying etc. As I got to fourth year, I began to realize the potential of PT and enjoyed the patient contacts - I knew I had to study everything again. I tried hard to obtain my degree, which I did and became a PT.

In my first two years of my career, I worked at a private clinic, where I studied and worked hard to catch up to everybody else who had studied their basics well at uni. I reached the stage where I thought to myself - I need to further my education; so I went and did my Masters in manip PT. I finished that and now work in a reputable private clinic. I started to do some tutoring as well as working.

I look back on my career and sometimes I wished I studied a bit harder as an undergraduate. However, I think the experience has led me to teach others to be more appreciative of what they are taught and be prepared to learn throughout one's career. What I believe is important for anyone in any career is realizing that the ways and the things that got you to where you are will not be enough to keep you there (from C. Hendy). So my next step beginning this year is to do my PhD at the University of Queensland with Paul Hodges.

This is my 5th year as a PT and I know there is still plenty for me to do and learn out there...

Henry Tsao

[Diane]

Hi Henry,
Welcome to SS, great to see you again.
:),
Diane