Mirror, Mirror <or> Let's Not Limit Healthcare Practices

Sometimes you meet a reflection of yourself, and it’s a version of your highest, aspirational self. Sometimes you meet your reflection, and it causes you to sit in a dark corner and blog about it.

This entry is about the rights and privileges that we give ourselves when we have suffered for something more than someone else. This is also known as being “more educated” about a given topic than another person.

This practitioner was openly critical of other, allied health care providers who’d “gone to a few weekend courses”, while she and her peers had had a full year on the same topic, and she was on a crusade to get exclusive rights to this practice within her country, so that “no one else can say they do it or bill for it. Only us.”

On one hand, I get it. Having a more comprehensive education on a given topic, especially regarding some aspect of patient health care, we may make the general assumption that the person who knows more may provide a better diagnostic and therapeutic experience.

However, this practice, even when done partially, is better than not doing it, and it’s hard to get it wrong. Also, this practitioner was totally missing the boat that she was attending a 6 hour class regarding a field that was entirely out of the range of classes she'd been taught in school, and she was about to open a clinic that specialized in it.

Wouldn’t patients be better off, having more widespread access to this therapy than not? And can we not also assume that a practitioner would refer someone on to another, more experienced practitioner, as needed?

#HealthCare #Concussion #TraumaticBrainInjury #VisualTherapy #OccupationalTherapy #Neuroscience