Written by Kento Kamiyama PT, DPT
This weekend, I was spending time with colleagues where we were geeking out about pediatrics physical therapy, postural restoration institute, selective functional movement assessment and neurokinetic therapy. During that time, my good friend and colleague Ashleigh McAdams helped assess my 9 month old son for me to check his developmental mile stones. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed several movement tendencies from my son but I didn’t have the skills nor the eyes to assess an infant’s movement objectively. She quickly objectively measured what was missing and gave my son simple proprioceptive cues manually and then BAM he was weight bearing on each hip symmetrically within half an hour.
During our collaboration, I also was discussing with her the patterns she and I saw are very similar to Postural Restoration Institute patterns. The commonalities and how we looked at it differently to come to a similar conclusion was quite amazing. She also was surprised that she had something to teach me.
This got me thinking the importance of intra AND inter-professional learning. Although I do see turf wars often between professions and even within professions, I found it the most beneficial when we respect and collaborate with each other. I’ve realized I learn the best and my clients gets the best out of it through collaboration and putting things together.
I love to learn. I especially love to learn from other colleagues AND other professions. Surprisingly enough, a good half of my educational courses come from courses instructed from other professionals such as trainers, chiropractors, massage therapists, doctor of osteopaths, etc and the other half from physical therapists.
Granted many of my courses I took are not physical therapy association credit approved but they have taught me tremendous lessons that I would not have received in a traditional physical therapy seminar.
I’m a big believer that every individual or profession has something to share and they do. I even learn from my patients EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Since my transition into cash based practice as an independent practitioner, I have been able to collaborate with different professionals (acupuncturists, trainers, massage therapists, chiropractors) and the results has been amazing. Not only do you get a different set of eyes to assess a patient, you also learn what are the similarities/commonalities you share. The clients/patients appreciate you as well since you are genuinely caring and giving them direction. You also see connections that you’ve never seen before.
I know I am here today thanks to the trainers, chiropractors, acupuncturists, fellow physical therapists, massage therapist, etc for collaborating and sharing their expertise with me. The more we collaborate the easier it is to know when to refer out to the right profession. I’m a strong believer there are plenty of people out there needing our help. Why not collaborate instead of creating turf wars?