What a huge backward step this is.
In an era of multimedia content, huge digital video libraries and podcast feeds featuring hundreds of hours of auditory delights, what kind of moron would start a magazine?!
At Physio Matters, we do our best work at scale. Over our 10 years in the MSK Education game, we have been obsessed with raising care standards by influencing clinical practice, education, operations and policy. Our data and instincts suggest that we moved the needle most when the MSK community had ‘Content In Common’.
A couple of examples; The Physio Matters Podcast is approaching 5 Million downloads and in its early years, episodes attracted 20,000 listens within a week of each airing (oh how I miss that monopoly…) This new fangled medium was the source of in-service training topics and was the talk of staff rooms far and wide. A shared language, a shared vision and a shared sense of progress through dialogue.
A few years later, Therapy Live demonstrated that a global pandemic didn’t disrupt the MSK community’s hunger for content. Over 22,500 showed up to break the internet by gorging on 7 concurrent streams of education at the largest MSK conference of all time. Again, thousands had Content In Common and were able to share links, clips, slides and even a few handouts.
But as we raise our heads from the pandemic and bear witness to the various local and global challenges across many domains, it’s as if we lack ideas. But I won’t buy that. I’m exposed every day to the best and brightest minds in the MSK industry whose ideas would do the world the world of good, so to my eye it’s a platform problem... and I’ve been here before…
Right now, evidence informed MSK practice risks fracturing into more pieces than ever. Concepts and data that should have unified us have emboldened nihilists who think that science is settled and startled magic-apologists into hiding. We need to engage in better argumentation, witness professional disagreement that isn’t rooted in petty tribalism and above all else, create sustainable working practices for the betterment of our patients and ourselves.
So to my huge backward step. Find enclosed on these glorious pages a sample of our incredible network of thinkers who are helping us once again redefine MSK education.
Tom Jesson explores what causes disc herniations, Nicola Graham declares the UK MSK Market an enigma, Derek Griffin is sick of bad imaging requests, Jo Turner shares some rather spicy reflections on a HCPC furore and I’m delighted to introduce you to a brilliant features writer called Rebecca Huxley who asks ‘Is CFT The Answer?’.
This is MSKMag. It will be out monthly. It will make you think.
And much like our podcast, it’ll be a ‘huge backward step’.
Jack Chew
Editor in Chief
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