Time

Enter a caption

There is no such thing as Time Management. There is only Self Management, time goes on as it will, no matter your intentions for it.

So what can happen over time? Time is one of these factors that is hard to account for, but does a lot of the treating of a patient for you. (see: It’s not ALL about you).  The biology of tissue healing occurs over a timeline and it occurs at a pace that is affected, but not determined, by us or your patient.

A Year In Review: II

We have seen large changes over the past year from personal perspectives here at the PTBT. The posts have continued… a host of topics following our varied and changing interests.

The transition from student-blogger to practicing-clinician-blogger is an interesting one. You must walk the walk. Cerebral idealism, philosophical concepts and metacognition are affronted by the real world N=1 scenarios, workplace pressures, time constraints, technique and exercise challenges and more comorbidities than you can shake a stick at.

“You wrote about how you should interact with this type of person/case, now they are in front of you.” Writing and reflecting on how to treat has kept the ship pointed in the right direction. Through the process of trying to form a thought, and even a thought that another person might understand (we hope!) you develop a skill for reduction. Reduction to the fine points.

The advice we give

image credit

Do this drill: Ask yourself “Do you think that everything you believe or think about the world is the truth?”  (Most thinking people will say ‘no.’) Follow-up with this question: “What are you wrong about?” … hmm…

We often think our way of thinking and understanding the world is correct. Well, we always think we are correct and act on it, but we know deep down that, since we are human, we cannot always be right. This is besides the point a bit, but this post deals with our advice, our own beliefs in what we and others should do. Sometimes there is a disconnect.

Experience and the Experiment

Image Credit

“Dad, let’s do an experience” my 6.5 year old said to me this morning. “Let’s see how far away these walkie-talkies can go and we can still hear each other.”

“Do you mean experiment?” I ask. “Yes, ex-per-i-ment” she says. We go over its pronunciation a few times. It’s a mix between my daughter having no front teeth and that she just gets her word choices mixed up now and then. Experience. Experiment. It’s an easy one to slip up on, plus they could be viewed in the same category in her head. “I will have an experience and learn something.” “I will do an experiment and learn something.” Same thing, basically, to a 1st grader.

So, you can see this question coming: Do you get Experience and Experiment mixed up?

Five Days of Fallacies: Day 5, Fallacist’s Fallacy

Five Days of Fallacies: Day 1 here, Day 2 here, Day 3 here, Day 4 here. I have discussed  some common mistakes we humans make in reasoning, in the hope that you can 1) Understand what they are 2) Recognize them when others speak 3) Recognize them when you think this way 4) Attempt to correct your thinking on old, current and future ideas.

The Fallacist’s Fallacy (I like saying that) refers to an argument being refuted, simply because it uses a fallicious approach, not because the content is false. For example: “These old-school classic basketball shoes always hold up better.” (an appeal to antiquity). The argument commits a fallacy (they are old = they are better), but perhaps they are constructed with more craftsmanship or durable supplies, so the content may still be true. (*are we to assume more craftsmanship and better supplies make a better B-Ball shoe?!  Oh my, don’t let me make assumptions here!)

The Gambler’s Fallacy is also a nice one to be aware of….

Five Days of Fallacies: Day 4, Circular Argument

Five Days of Fallacies: Day 1 here, Day 2 here, Day 3 here, Day 5 here. I am discussing some common mistakes we humans make in reasoning, in the hope that you can 1) Understand what they are 2) Recognize them when others speak 3) Recognize them when you think this way 4) Attempt to correct your thinking on old, current and future ideas.

The Circular Argument, or Begging the Question. “Fascia is a tissue in the body that holds one’s emotions. I know this because the research I did indicates that releasing fascia results in released emotions. Therefore, fascia holds our emotions.”  In my opinion, these fallacies are very hard to understand and uncover in conversation. In circular arguments the conclusion of the statement is stated up front, and any statement after that simply restates the presumed conclusion.

Let me give a simple example: “Everyone is using METs at the hip because they are so popular right now!” Did you catch it?

Five Days of Fallacies: Day 3, Irrelevant Appeals

Five Days of Fallacies: Day 1 here, Day 2 here, Day 4 here, Day 5 here. I am discussing some common mistakes we humans make in reasoning, in the hope that you can 1) Understand what they are 2) Recognize them when others speak 3) Recognize them when you think this way 4) Attempt to correct your thinking on old, current and future ideas.

Irrelevant Appeals are seen often when someone is trying to persuade you. This can be during an argument, debate, casual discussion, sales pitch, etc. The irrelevance is to the point at hand, it may seem like an important retort, however, it has no bearing on the facts. Some examples:

Appeal to Antiquity: The idea is valid, because it has been around for a long time. “This is traditional natural medicine, it was done this way for 2,000 years,of course it’s valid.” Well, many old ideas and practices are bad. The antiquity of an idea has no bearing on it’s usefulness. Bloodletting, lobotomies, acupuncture, essential oils, they are all old, right?

Appeal to Novelty: The opposite of above. “The newest thoughts on how to treat X are ABC.” The newness is irrelevant, but it seems better, right?

Commute = Classroom

Img Cred

Commute time can either suck your life force, or it can become a valuable part of your development. So, yes, there are tons of great Podcasts on the subject of Physical Therapy / Physiotherapy from many angles, and I encourage you to listen and learn. But what I’m going to share today are 3 Non-PT Podcasts… for PTs.

1)     The You Are Not So Smart podcast, hosted by David McRaney.  There are tons of great episodes here, primarily on psychology, cognitive biases, social patterns, scientific thought and all things thinking. I cannot state enough how important these types of topics are for the practicing PT, primarily because, no matter what the injury or body part, we all treat people.  They’re all great, but… Some highlight episodes:

Fundamental Finances

Img Cred

Stacks on stacks! You make money, now what will your money make?

In this post I interview Dr. Zachary Stroud, MD, MBA to get some great insights into how to make our money work for us. Zach is extremely passionate about finances/economics and equally passionate on how to make it simple and understandable. (*economics is basically just people interacting, and as a Psychiatrist, he knows people). He also operates TheInvestmentMD.com with tons of free information, no conflict of interest selling/soliciting, just pure helpful honest content. The guy really brings value to the financial conversation. Let’s Begin…

(Me:) Zach, tell me a bit about why you like economics so much?

(Zach): I would say that I prefer finance to economics. I enjoy understanding money and how the benefits of my hard work in medicine can be utilized to my advantage through investing. Economics is interesting because people as a group can behave just as irrationally as an individual. This can create distortions in prices in the investment world. It requires a certain bit of self-reflection when you invest because you have to know where your biases and weaknesses are. I highly recommend Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking Fast and Slow, which talks about some of these biases.

Warren Buffett has stated in the past that you don’t need to be all that smart in terms of investing, you just need to be able to remain calm and keep emotions from ruining investment decisions. As an investor and as a psychiatrist, I wholeheartedly agree with this idea.

Let’s discuss the 3 major concepts we should think about (can be conceptual or pragmatic) when dealing with our investments:

Population Health

Having just driven up to Maine (half the US eastern seaboard) I was exposed to the population at large. While people-watching  at rest stops, traffic jams and city streets, I started thinking about population health and the APTA’s “transforming society” aims.

My first reaction was “Ha, yeah right.” My second reaction was “Hahaha, yeah right.” Now, it’s not that we cannot treat any and all of these individuals within our scope in all movement, pain and return-to-QOL aspects, we certainly can. But “transforming society” is not as simple as treating patients.