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 ...

Recently I took on another challenge, writing a CEU module. When I agreed to do it, I thought no problem. This is what I teach. I already have an outline and references. I can just fill in the words. After I started writing, I realized something. When I teach, I have lots of material to cover so spend little time on any one thing. The CEU module ...

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 ...

Reading Jason Marketti's blog last week reminded me of a discussion we're having here in Texas. It's called RC-3 and is an amendment to the Texas Physical Therapy Practice Act. It proposes unlicensed individuals such as athletic trainers and massage therapists be used as PT extenders. These extenders are to provide care as directed by the physical ...

Last week, I wrote about my experiences teaching my first CEU course. I mentioned how much work it was but didn't go into details. It took me nearly four months to finish, including two months of working at least an hour or two every night. Now I'm going back and revising the content. I'm beginning to think that is an ongoing process. In the ...

There is new evidence in the physical therapy world that creates a paradox. The patients who benefit the most are the patients who receive the least therapy. Everything I read demonstrated that the more impaired patients made the greatest improvement when provided with the most intense therapy. This was true in the acute, subacute and chronic ...

This morning I had a conversation with an OT who has as much experience or more than I do. I mentioned my frustration with employers desiring low pay over experienced therapists. I don't think my tDPT and geriatric specialization have made me more attractive to employers. If anything, they have made me less attractive. Having them makes me more ...

Jason Marketti made an excellent point last week when he responded to my post. He pointed out that in all but one state, reimbursement is the same for treatments provided by a PT or a PTA. On the surface, that makes sense. Our charges are treatment-based. If I perform gait training, I charge a gait. If Jason performs gait training, he also charges ...

It's been several months since I was elected as a board member to the Southeast District (SED) of the TPTA. Another meeting is coming up this week. I have nothing to report. That isn't particularly surprising since I only have two responsibilities; the spring and fall student socials. Next month will be different. Meanwhile I've had time to ...

This year I made it to CSM. Everything fell into place. New Orleans is 6 hours from Houston. My facility paid my registration. I found a cheap hotel room close to the convention center. Now that I'm back I'm still working on defining my perceptions and experiences. My attention span gradually decreased as the conference continued. By the last ...