I am a fresh physiotherapy graduate undergoing an internship at a tertiary care hospital....
SPEAK OUT
I am a fresh physiotherapy graduate undergoing an internship at a tertiary care hospital. From college time (F.Sc. pre-medical) throughout my degree and till now, I’ve come across many misunderstandings regarding physiotherapy. Even I had many misconceptions about this field before getting into it.
Firstly, let’s define physiotherapy. According to the World Confederation of Physical Therapy (WCPT), “services for individuals and populations to develop, maintain, and restore maximum movement and functional ability throughout the lifespan” are included within physiotherapy or physical therapy (both are the same thing). Physiotherapy is a recognized field, a part of rehabilitation workforce as stated by World Health Organization (WHO) across the world.
One of the most common misconceptions about physiotherapists is that they cannot use the title “Dr.” before their name. That is not true. We can use the prefix “Dr.” but also write the suffix “PT” alongside so as to avoid confusing us with medical doctors and dentists. This has been notified both by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Allied Health Professionals Council (AHPC).
The second misconception is that they cannot engage in independent clinical practice, they can’t set up their own clinics. This might have been true when the physiotherapy profession was developing and used to be practised only under the supervision of medical doctors in the past, but that is not the case now. Physiotherapy education has evolved over time and has now become a five years Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) degree whose primary purpose is to make the graduates capable of autonomous physical therapy practice. We know which patients fall under our scope of practice and which don’t. We can also refer the patients for diagnostic tests and to other health professionals. These things are part of our curriculum and we are taught these under the subjects of “professionalism” and “differential diagnosis”.
The third misconception is that physiotherapists are masseurs or massagers. Maybe this is even not a misconception but a way to ridicule the profession and make fun of it. This is a lie. Physiotherapists treat patients using different exercises, stretching, mobilization, manipulation, electric currents, therapeutic ultrasound, and some other things. Therapeutic massage may be used by us in some conditions, but we do not provide relaxing or recreational massage.
The fourth misconception is that physiotherapy is only for the rich and the elite, not for the lower class because it deals with issues which are more common in the upper class. This is not completely true. Although faulty postures, obesity, and sedentary lifestyle are more common in the rich, but these are not the only issues dealt by the physiotherapists. We deal with stroke, frozen shoulder, cerebral palsy, and disc slip patients, and handle ailments which occur in the poor and the rich alike. I’m working in the burn unit of a hospital and treating outdoor patients for contractures and indoor patients for prevention of contracture and chest infection.
The final misconception I want to discuss is that some doctors refer to the physiotherapists as non-medical professionals. I think that this is unfair considering that we study almost sixth to seventy percent of the syllabus of MBBS. (I have not calculated this percentage, but the majority of the first- and second-year subjects were the same, while some of the third- and fourth-year subjects were also the same). So, I advise my fellow doctors (of medical field) to call us allied health professionals (which includes all other health-related professions except medicine and nursing) or simply physiotherapists.
At the end, I would like to say that we should give respect to every profession which serves the society in a halal (lawful) way. Just because we don’t know their importance doesn’t mean we should degrade them or consider them lesser than us. Health is a critical field; it should be regulated but in such a way that every health professional is allowed to practise within their scope of practice and not interfere in each other’s field.
