“We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training”
This quote is taken from the Tim Ferriss book Tools of Titans.
In PT, we all believe that we will change the world. We have visions of grandeur in which we take patients from wheelchair to playing field. Preventing surgeries, curing world health problems and wearing a red cape with a big “S” on our chest…okay maybe not all of us have these dreams.
In the end though, our patients are doomed to fail if they see a PT that has not lived up to his/her professional duties of continuing education. In Illinois, we are required to obtain 40 hours of continuing education every 2 years.
Let’s think about this number. It’s been said that one needs about 10,000 hours to master a topic. That’s a lot of years if one takes the minimum amount of hours. At that pace, one can never become a master of anything other than a long commute.
When choosing a therapist, there has to be more thought put into it than your next vacation. You are spending your hard earned money…or the insurance company’s money…don’t you want to know that the person treating you is actually good at what they do?
Have they taught classes? Have they studied independently? Are they giving back to the community?
HELL, let’s start at the basics…do they pay attention to you when you’re in the clinic? Not in a three ring circus kind of way, in which they are just managing the acts that come in and send the patient from machine to machine, but are they paying attention to YOU?
I’d love to think that everyone in this profession of PT is operating up to his/her expectations, but deep down I know that we operate at or below our training. Not all PTs have the same knowledge.
https://movementthinker.org/2017/10/17/not-knowing-versus-not-learning/
Having spent time in the profession, I can state that I’ve seen the top 5% of the profession, and they are awesome. Unfortunately, it’s only the top 5%. The rest go nameless like worker bees to support a queen. There are very few queens in this industry and if you do a quick search, you can find those companies that make the most, are worth the most, are publicly traded etc.
We just want to help people. That’s the number one answer I hear from students entering the field, unfortunately not everyone continues to practice in this mentality once out of PT school.
We need to live up to our expectations more and improve our training to reach those expectations.
Salute!