I learned this expression while working in England. It was a way of getting to the core of something, often a product, to determine the original intent and whether it was accomplished. I wonder that about continuing education requirements. Florida has had them (12 hours/year) since I've been practicing (a long time) while New York has only ...

So I'm back in the US about six months now and I've got a massive amount of continuing education to do. Before anyone starts wagging fingers about ''serves you right'' or anything else that sounds like your mother scolding, I had to do lots of CPD (continuous professional development) in the UK... none of it counts here. The UK accepts everything ...

The American Physical Therapy Association, Alexandria, VA, put out a press release yesterday detailing the role that therapy professionals and students played in helping victims of the tragic bombing at the Boston Marathon. The release stated: ''A team of 70 members of APTA's Massachusetts Chapter, stationed at the Boston Marathon finish line on ...

Anyone who reads my blog with regularity knows the last year has been a struggle for me. I lost my beloved job. I was fired for being ethical. I encountered more than my share of unethical and self-serving people. During all of that, I hung on and kept going to work. Every so often I made a difference to someone, which kept me going. For the ...

I'm a peer reviewer for the Texas continuing education program. I review submissions for neuro, geriatric, acute and general so I get to see a lot what is being proposed for continuing education. Texas has a specific form that must be completed for each course submitted for review. It includes speaker qualifications, specific goals, a statement of ...

As I was perusing the various state board websites, I noticed several states offered licenses to PTs but required the PTA to have a certificate to practice and provide therapy care. I've been awarded certificates in achievement, performance and even have one as a geriatric wellness specialist. My children come home from school with certificates in ...

As part of a very in-depth project for our ''Leadership and Professional Development'' course, I'm in charge of justifying the purchase of an electronic health record (EHR) for our theoretical outpatient private practice. I've been spending a lot of time researching the benefits, processes and considerations for EHR implementation, and I'm ...

It has been just over three years since ''Treat Me, but No Tricks Please''  appeared in The New York Times. In this scathing piece about inconsistency in physical therapy, Gina Kolata roiled emotions and got a lot of people thinking about whether what we do actually works or not. It was of little help that the president of the orthopedic ...

During my first clinical rotation as a student (which was a short, four-week orientation), my clinical instructor often gave me the task of finding research articles or handouts to give our patients. I distinctly remember working with one patient who had Parkinson's disease. After one of our sessions, we went over an article on Parkinson's ...

Now that I'm home from CSM, I've had an opportunity to process all of the information. Most of the presentations were excellent. Those that weren't purely theoretical had a common theme. We have to maximize what we do because we're spending less and less time with patients. We have less time to spend because there isn't money to pay for our ...