Welcome back to Chewy and Jim!. In this recording there wasn’t anyone available to reign them in so we had to edit out some of their more ridiculous tangents.No one for example is interested in Jim’s traffic updates or Chewy’s niche personality anecdotes.
What we are left with is a great chat about the pros and cons of the explosion of online CPD opportunities, second opinions in rehab and then finishing on interviews. So strap in, this is definitely best enjoyed in audio but here is a summation of the discussion if you don’t have any earphones in because not everyone wants to hear the theme tune for some reason…
"My concern is that we are becoming too passive with regards to the learning."
Jim starts this conversation with observations he has made over the last few years about the interaction between CPD provider and learner. Interaction online seems to be dipping (in his opinion) on both his Rheumatology courses/webinars but also on the Physio Matters events. We can see this is backed up with the volume of questions and chat that is logged at these events, previously the chat function was unmanageably busy and now is relatively sedate.
Of course all this could be a local problem but the boys think it might be symptomatic of larger dynamic shifts related to online CPD. Multi-tasking (listening to webinars AND washing up) being a positive reason there is less interaction and passive attendance (barely listening and hiding behind the webcam) being a negative one.
There is so much CPD available and there are so many demands on our time that it is possible we don’t have the brain space to allow for as much active participation.
"It’s hard to ignore somebody who is literally standing in front of you. Online, they aren’t in the same room as you."
Jim also furthers this discussion point suggesting that it is societally easier to tap out of the learning opportunity if you are online; the speaker won’t notice you are gone, you can do your ironing while listening and so on. In person it is rather obvious if you bring your ironing to the venue and set up in the back of the room.
The boys also posited that it might be the case that in person the attendees can see/feel the awkward silence much more obviously than online keeping the interaction alive and kicking.
What do you think, are you more interactive in one CPD medium than another? Have you a strong preference? Are the boys wrong? Get in touch, especially if it's the last one.
"Rehab skills aren’t valued anymore in physiotherapy"
Well this part of the conversation got deep quick. Chewy explained that he gets a lot of second opinion work sent his way for rehab and most of the time, he is just undoing the s*&% that someone had done before him.
Chewy argues that his kind of second opinion work should not need to exist if rehab skills were decent across the board. Second opinions should be for niche cases to absolute legends like Jo Gibson, Mehmet Gem or Jack March ;)
They try to get into possible reasons for this, falling on a few variables particularly that rehab skills aren’t well valued or remunerated, taking a back seat to interventional skills like injections and diagnostic skills. Are we losing our good generalists? Is this the fault of a lack of standards for us to aspire to? Where are the Consultant Rehab posts (we stole this argument from Uzo Ehiogu)?
"We wouldn’t get into needing all this advanced stuff if people got a decent rehab program and returned to function early on."
Are Chewy and Jim the boys to be appraising the state of access to quality rehab and societal needs/pressures when they can’t get through five minutes without calling one another Voldemort or fat head? Probably not but they do allude to these as possible impactful factors. Who will lead on these changes? Someone needs to!
"If we raise standards, second opinion work should be rarer and rarer."
Again tell us your thoughts, should Chewy just get on with it and get mad rich on all these referrals his clinic is getting? Or do the powers that be need to step up and get better remuneration and respect for early delivery of a damn good rehab program with contemporary education! Where is my placard making kit…?
"You're over-relying on that charm, mate. Your clinical questions and clinical reasoning are lacking."
Chewy tells us a story about an interview when he was part of the panel, a prospective Band 6 managed to woo the reception staff but fell rather flat on clinical reasoning. Chewy then brutalised him verbally over the phone with feedback but he isn’t on trial here…
It brings up the question of standardisation in a different format. Without ways of testing ourselves that can compare us empirically to others, how do we assess our strengths and weaknesses objectively? Those super personable people probably get some people better purely based on that skill but can that be relied upon in every situation? If that gets you only so far, you still need actual clinical skills to fall back on.
So in summary, Chewy and Jim suggest that you should engage actively in your online and in person CPD sessions, be awesome at rehab and push for that to be a respectable goal and don’t over rely on your charm. Jim doesn’t have that problem, he is as charming as aged milk.
See you next time on Chewy and Jim, send us questions, send us heckles, we are here for it.
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