A question we, as physiotherapists, often get asked from friends, family members, and clients is:
“What do you think about [insert other healthcare professional – i.e. chiropractors, massage therapists, etc.]?”
Much like the “It depends” blog post – the answer is, in a way, “it depends”.
Chiropractors, massage therapists, and even physiotherapists for that matter, are much the same as any other profession.
Just like there are good restaurant servers and bad restaurant servers, there are good chiropractors and bad chiropractors, good physiotherapists and bad physiotherapists.
Almost every profession, job, career, or product has a good version, and a bad version.
In this case, the word ‘bad’ is a generic word, and of course, entirely subjective.
Bad doesn’t necessarily mean they have poor hands-on clinical skills, or that they don’t get 100% of their clients better.
Bad – to me anyways – means complacent.
As mentioned, most professions have a good and bad, and therefore we can assume there is a spectrum of “talent” (again, ‘talent’ being used as a generic, subjective term).
Since there is a spectrum, this means that it can be placed on a normal distribution bell curve, like this one:
We will use health care practitioners (i.e. chiropractors, physiotherapists) to quickly explain.
Most healthcare practitioners fall in the middle, close to the average, and in many cases, are successful practitioners who get the majority of their clientele better.
Some fall to the left side of the bell-curve, which in my opinion, are the ones you want to try and avoid.
Now, like I said, hands-on skills may not be what places them towards the left of this curve.
More likely, what places them near the left is complacency. They are comfortable with being average (or just below average).
They are comfortable getting a decent proportion of their clients better. They are comfortable with the knowledge they currently have and the skills they currently use.
That being said, some fall to the right side of the bell-curve, which in my opinion, are the ones you want to try and seek out.
These practitioners are always striving to better their practice (both soft (i.e. communication) and hard (i.e. hands-on) skills), as well as to better themselves.
They self-reflect on what they could have done better, even in the successful cases.
Most importantly, they are never complacent and comfortable with their current abilities, they are always striving to know more.
Know the newest research, know a different hands-on technique, know what works, and how to alter it if it doesn’t.
That was the long answer. The short answer is this:
- There are good healthcare practitioners, and there are bad ones. So it depends what I think about [insert other healthcare professional – i.e. chiropractors, massage therapists, etc.].
Are they a good one or a bad one?
The purpose of this blog post was to:
- Give my long answer to what I think about other healthcare practitioners.
- Give guidance: If you are a client, seeking the help of a healthcare practitioner, find someone striving to be near the right side of the bell curve. Find someone that listens to you, find someone that will always try new things, and find someone who truly cares.
- Give guidance: If you are a healthcare practitioner, the message is simple. Strive to be near the right side of the bell-curve.
Need the help of a physiotherapist striving to be at the right of the bell curve?
Call us at 519-895-2020, or use our online booking tool on www.strivept.ca to book an appointment with one of our knowledgeable physiotherapists, and they will be sure to help you understand your injury.
Until next time,
Tyler Allen Physiotherapist at Strive Physiotherapy and Performance