Laurie's Blogs.

 

08
Dec 2013

Responses to the 'Issues International' Blog

Following are the responses I received regarding the last blog post.  I include them because I think it's interesting and important to open discussions and provide unique thoughts and perspectives.  That is my intention in passing them along...

 

One PT wrote:

Hey Laurie,

I just had to tell you you’re blog on Physio’s needing balls cracked me up! Only you could get away with that…you are too funny.

 

One Vet wrote:

Yes, yes, and yes, Laurie. Agreed with all of your blog! Certainly wish I had a little more testosterone at times, but my motto currently is " I don't care how long or what it takes, I am not going away." I am certain rehab will become the standard of care soon!

 

A Physio wrote:

Word of mouth in the "general pubic" still the best...walk the talk then the population will KNOW and seek this type of help...it is true though that it seems that canine chiros may have the marketing advantage yet again!  They are walking billboards most of them! LOL

 

And another vet wrote:

At the risk of sounding unflattering to my colleagues, “It’s not you, it’s us.”  Here is my fully biased, unproven opinion:

  • First off, I heard about the ACVSMR’s recent policy statement about only wanting to recognize vets for rehab.  I am embarrassed on behalf of their short-sightedness and inflated sense of self worth.
  • Vets don’t like hearing that other professionals are on par with them when it comes to animal related knowledge; we’ve owned the kingdom for too long and are very protective of it - above all other considerations - just like chiro’s and their thoughts on whether anyone else should ever be allowed to do adjustments.
  • To that end, I think vets would feel less threatened if physio’s presented themselves more like technicians, someone less threatening, under veterinary command, doing useful things that vets don’t want to be doing anyway.  I say that knowing how demeaning such a stance would be for a qualified professional to take, and don’t know if I could do it myself (my ego isn’t down with shit like that), but it might be the way to get your foot in the door.  Once reasonable vets see the results, and see you making clients happy over a problem they couldn’t solve themselves, but they still get the credit anyway for referring the client to the right person, I would think things would snowball from there.
  • “Reasonable vets” aren’t as easy to find as you might think.  I suspect this will get better when it becomes a more female dominated profession.
  • Show the vet you can make them money without them lifting a finger.  This would only work for physio’s working out of a vet hosp, not as a separate entity.  I think separate facilities face a steeper uphill battle getting vets on board (go back to the spiel on “feeling threatened”).
  • Papers need to get published and then talked about at conferences.  Not just abstract concepts, but practise-ready papers that show how applied physio techniques produce measurable improvement in dogs.  If people lecturing at conventions can say that evidence based medicine shows rehab works, then minds will start to change.  This would be especially useful if techniques that regular vets don’t know how to do, or don’t have time for, are proven to work.  Then they can delegate accordingly (go back to paragraph on acting like a technician and not the qualified professionals that you are in order to cow-tow to some pretentious buffoon that should have retired years ago).  Similarly, it needs to be talked about in practise management lectures so that vets learn they can make money from it.
  • Separate yourselves from the "woo-woo cum-bai-ya" crowd (I'm talking to you, flakey chiros, and homeopaths), by talking science to the western mentality vets, and emphasize holistic health when talking to the "new age" clinics.

Hope that helps. 

So these are all of the responses that came back in!  Food for thought!

Cheers,

 

Laurie



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