Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.281 'Common Frustrations For MSK Clinicians - Part 2/4'' with Carla Bickerstaffe & Emily Gilbert

Transcript

Ep.281 'Common Frustrations For MSK Clinicians - Part 2/4'' with Carla Bickerstaffe & Emily Gilbert · The STA Clinician Podcast

• 0:00
  You're listening to the STA Clinician Podcast, connecting clinicians across healthcare.
• 0:18
  Podcast formerly known as the sports therapy association
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  podcast and my name is matt phillips for those of you who don't
• 0:23
  recognize my voice i'm the creator of one chat live.com and as
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  always this episode is being recorded live on the
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  sports therapy association youtube channel and facebook page at eight o'clock
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  normally on a tuesday that's where we hang out and if you are listening to podcast
• 0:37
  and you want to join us live then that's where you go to every week for the
• 0:40
  last where are we 281 weeks so anyway we've arrived at part two of our focus
• 0:46
  this month common frustrations for MSK clinicians.
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  And in part two, very shortly, I'm going to be joined by special guest,
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  Carla Bickerstaff, sports therapist and part of the Invictus Games medical team.
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  And Emily Gilbert, chronic pain specialist and owner of Framework Sports Massage.
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  Both have been on the show before.
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  So a lot of you, I know, are very fond of these two and I'm very excited to
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  have them back. And if you haven't heard them, then you're in for a treat because
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  they're fantastic therapists with great heads in their shoulders.
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  And I've already just made them start sweating profusely now because they're
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  realizing that I'm just setting them up for failure. But you'll be great.
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  Don't are going to be exploring their frustrations with the term soft skills
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  and also their annoyance at what seems to be an ever-increasing number of very
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  short-line online qualifications that allow the individual who takes them to
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  then open up as a sports therapist and take people's money.
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  So there are two very interesting areas which we're going to discuss very shortly.
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  But first, I must give my thanks to people who joined me in part one.
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  If you missed it, then I was joined in part one by the wonderful Immy Tester,
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  who a lot of you will know from the ST School and the courses that she runs.
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  And with Immy Tester was Joe...
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  Turner founder of mehab.co.uk and together
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  they discussed their frustrations with a couple of things again great episode
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  i always say that what's the point but it is a great episode but they
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  talked about the very often polarized debate of
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  good posture you know like expressions like there's no
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  such thing as good posture your best posture is your next posture stuff
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  like that and it's easy to get the wrong end of the stick and throw the baby
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  out with the bathwater sort of thing so they they presented a wonderful discussion
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  on when posture does maybe matter in what sense and also they talked about that
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  the idea that maintenance massage is just a luxury whoever said that well he's
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  on the show next in two weeks time so you'll be able to see that,
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  so interested i'm setting up again he didn't even mean it in a bad way it was a wonderful.
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  Example of semantics and and where it's defined but yeah
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  some people do i mean sometimes even massage therapists
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  themselves think oh this is just a luxury let's face it that's
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  the worst thing you can do as a massage therapist you've got far more going on than
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  probably you realize and also patients of course and clients sometimes
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  think it's just a luxury and so a great episode for
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  you to listen to why it's not just a luxury for many people far from it and
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  that is available as always on youtube and an all popular podcast apps but for
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  now we are going to return tonight to part two which is common frustrations
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  for MSK clinicians with my special guests Coming up now, Carla Bickerstaff and Emily Gilbert.
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  Good evening, Carla Bickerstaff and Emily Gilbert. How are you doing?
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  Hello. Hi. Nice to see you.
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  Sorry for just bigging you up too much beginning i know neither of you
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  like compliments and that sort of stuff but i am very fond of everything you
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  do so it's great to have you in the show so thank you carla if
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  i can turn to you first i just do you realize you were
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  last on the show over a year ago it's like a year and a month oh really
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  yeah it's crazy didn't know that no doing this
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  show and then realizing guests have been away for a year just
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  makes me realize just how quickly time goes yeah it was it was
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  the month we did back in march 2025 which
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  was on disability and sport we had four amazing episodes
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  and you were with us for a couple of them with jenny lane and then
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  you were joined by the amazing rich potter rich davis and then
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  also you're talking about victor's games we had it's a
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  fantastic episode with um samantha may jimma barnes if
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  you remember those but yeah a year ago so my first question
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  to you is what you've been doing for you um so been
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  pretty busy actually i've been sort of
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  mainly clinic based we've been expanding clinic things
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  like that i've done a lot more work with uk
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  ultimate as well recently so i've been away with their
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  teams traveled abroad with them continue people sorry
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  for listeners who aren't aware of uk ultimate pardon for listeners who aren't
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  aware what uk ultimate is oh um it's ultimate frisbee so when i first got involved
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  with them a couple of years ago i had no idea what i was signing up for like
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  i didn't really know what ultimate frisbee was went to my first world event
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  and completely not what I expected.
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  Obviously, you think about throwing a Frisbee between two people.
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  This is a whole team event where
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  they have an... It's like a cross between American football and netball.
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  They have an offense and a defense. They have to throw the disc to catch it
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  in an end zone, score points.
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  And it is the most crazy sport ever.
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  But it's also brilliant. I think if I was a kid and that was popular right now,
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  I would totally play that sport.
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  Like it is great fun. But along with it comes a lot of huge variety of injuries.
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  And it's completely different to anything that I've done before.
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  So it's great. Been doing a lot with them, get to travel a lot with them.
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  That must be so interesting for you because, I mean, I know you predominantly,
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  a lot of the time you've worked with swimmers and we're looking at almost like
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  a new movement of the arm, which isn't like a crawl, isn't it kind of a breaststroke?
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  It's totally different movement still repetitive and
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  so yeah suddenly it must open up all sorts of different injuries for you yeah and
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  also they they tend to do a lot of weird and wonderful things
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  as well in terms of it's played outside on grass so
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  they play in football boots essentially but they
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  will literally throw themselves to catch the
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  disc so we do see dislocated shoulders
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  we do have a lot of what they call laying out so
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  they're literally full-on stretch superman and just hit the deck
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  and then they're like oh my ribs are sore my back sore
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  well it's probably just because you're throwing yourself on the floor that's amazing
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  yeah lots of stuff like that and then
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  alongside that i've still been continuing my work with rich potter as he was
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  prepping for mds but then sadly didn't happen yeah deferred it's next year so
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  we regroup we replan and then he'll go again next year hopefully is he okay
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  about that i can imagine that it was really frustrating for him yeah.
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  We'll get back on the show positive he yeah he will do it he's like i say it's
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  just been pushed to next year so we'll that's happen,
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  regroup and go again as it goes amazing fantastic
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  so being very busy if i could turn now
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  thank you carla and emily gilbert welcome back thank you
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  very much you were last here not so long ago it was
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  it didn't go well last time did it because i couldn't connect to the live oh
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  really was that what it was yes that was when we were talking about do conferences
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  change your practice it was it's true yeah yeah we'll go to the time before
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  that when we discuss the uh st conference we've Imagine talking a lot about
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  conferences and education,
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  but obviously that's a real hot topic for you and you've devoted a lot now of
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  your time and energy into kind of trying
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  to help people get onto the evidence-informed practice kind of page.
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  How's that been going for the last kind of, well, it's October,
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  so last kind of five months? Are you still involved in that? Yeah, good.
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  So I'm coaching massage therapists who are wanting to develop their evidence-based practice.
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  So we're looking at things like learning how to read qualitative,
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  quantitative research, developing soft skills, perfect for this episode.
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  And then very much understanding pain because we have a real problem in the
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  massage therapy space with massage therapists working with people in pain and
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  then they are not quite understanding pain or have no knowledge of pain whatsoever.
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  In addition to that, I'm developing a touch exposure program with a psychologist
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  and we're working with people that have experienced domestic violence and sexual
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  assault and have had their relationship with touch completely decimated.
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  So that's very cool. What else am I doing? Working with some powerlifting athletes
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  at the moment and then general day-to-day supporting people living with chronic pain.
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  Wow. I'm doing quite a lot, actually. You must get up very early in the morning. No, it's all good.
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  It's lovely. That all sounds like there's four episodes there,
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  but I could talk about all of them.
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  That's really interesting because, I mean, we joked about when Tristan,
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  who's on in a couple of weeks, said this, oh, Massa, is Massa so luxury?
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  And we know he didn't really mean that in that way, but what you're doing here is,
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  giving massage therapists, recognising how much they can help,
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  giving them the skills to really make a difference, I guess.
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  Very interested how we can incorporate touch into wider models of care.
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  I also work with adults with learning intellectual disabilities as well,
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  which is, I love it. It's great.
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  And I think touch has such, what's the word?
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  We have such, I can't think of how I'm trying to explain this.
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  There's a vast scope for it,
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  but we don't seem to integrate it very well into wider care models as massage
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  therapists we very much seem to work in isolation and i really i'm trying to
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  move away from that a little bit because it's great working with other people.
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  So exciting so interesting right you just give me ideas for
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  the next four episodes fantastic but we're gonna that's uh
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  thank you very much i'm just to give um listeners an idea because often i get this
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  people say oh it's nice to know where the guests are from what part of the world because
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  this is a networking opportunity of people in your area there might be people who
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  are living like down the road from you i'm always trying to talk about collaboration and
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  meeting up and maybe having coffee and sort of stuff once you veto them
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  and make sure they're not psychos but um so carla what neck
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  of the woods are you in i'm sheffield sheffield
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  yeah don't give the address not the road just fine and
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  emily whereabouts in the world are you sheffield we've met
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  in person yeah there you go so did
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  you did you realize you were both in sheffield no not initially we we didn't
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  know each other prior to this and we we networked ourselves yeah we kind of
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  just reached out well I think Carla reached out to me on Instagram and just
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  said do you want to go for a coffee I'm in Sheffield for some reason I thought
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  Carla was down south like.
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  Exeter way no who
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  knows obviously not that's great
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  that's so nice that's so good when that sort of thing happens right then
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  so i'm just going to have a little hi to
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  people who have joined us live obviously if you have joined us live and
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  take advantage of the fact to share your own experience we should love to
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  hear you don't have to be a question it could just be something related to the
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  topic which you want to share with us and if you do share
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  something i can bring it up on the screen like example here i've got a lot of highs
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  coming for people who joined us sir glenn murphy so glenn how are you um
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  has joined us and says hi immy is here from last
• 10:44
  week's immy i shall be listening my drive home as usual yeah all the
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  time i just keep your hands on the wheel immy concentrate you know what you're
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  like um gary benson founder of the sta has joined us as well
• 10:53
  says evening all hope you will be blessed by sunshine today such a
• 10:55
  nice birthday blessed by sunshine thank you gary
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  we've got jenny's here as well did you know jenny was turning up
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  always of course she's here jenny is here who was on the podcast before which
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  i mentioned again working with the victor sports and working with riches and
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  stuff so jenny says hi guys really looking forward to listening to you all and
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  then there's like a ghost symbol i'm not sure what that's about but well i don't
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  know what jenny's drinking um leslie's here in the house i'm here.
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  And the lovely jessica janeman or yaneman we've got some fantastic people coming
• 11:27
  to join us so thank you people who join us live always i don't say enough it's
• 11:31
  it's lovely to have you here but Also, thank you for people who listen to the podcast.
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  Right, so let's crack off with frustrations, MS Clay clinicians.
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  Let's start off then, and it may well feed into the other one,
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  but for people who aren't aware when we talk about soft skills,
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  is there a definition? What comes into soft skills?
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  I would say it's everything that goes around your clinical skills.
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  So how you talk to people, how you listen to them, your time management, your note taking.
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  Those kind of things are just as important as your hands-on skills.
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  But I don't really like the term soft skills.
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  But I don't know what we should call them or what we could call them instead.
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  Because they're not really
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  something that you are specifically taught on
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  courses you kind of have to develop them yourself yes you're taught how to write
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  like soap notes let's say but then it's what do you include extra within that
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  that is useful to for the next time you're going to see that patient because
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  you might have a month between appointments and are you going to remember,
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  everything about that appointment from really basic notes or should you be putting
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  more depth into them so I think it's those kind of things on like turning up
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  on time for appointments or being early for appointments like,
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  if you're if you've got a patient sat in
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  the waiting room and you're rocking in at two o'clock when it's the start of
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  their appointment is that really a good look as a therapist is if you were somewhere
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  else if you were at the doctor's and you saw the doctor walking in your appointment
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  time you'd be like for god's sake they're late like so it's kind of that double standard of.
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  Is that acceptable should that be acceptable like should we be holding people
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  accountable for those kind of things.
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  But like I say, I'm not really sure if soft skills is the right term for that.
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  What do you think on most, in MSK or in courses you teach or you've had yourselves,
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  what are the hard skills then?
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  Let's look at the other end of the coin. What do you think are traditionally
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  regarded as the hard skills of being a sports therapist or massage therapist?
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  So I don't really distinguish between kind of,
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  you know, the hands-on practice, practice, the technical work and then everything else
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  I think it all makes up your
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  entire work as a therapist for me personally working with
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  people with chronic or persistent pain communication listening
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  skills holding space for discomfort they they're
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  just as important as massage or movement or I don't I struggle to kind of you
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  know like distinguish between the two because I don't think you can have one
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  without the other we know it doesn't work you'll have therapists they're incredibly
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  technically skilled but then.
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  Don't create the most pleasant, safe environment for their clients.
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  You have people that are super friendly, you know, make people feel very safe,
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  maybe aren't super experienced in, in, you know, different techniques or skills.
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  I think, I just, I don't think we can distinguish between the two.
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  I don't think we can. And I think you're right. We can't have one without the
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  other, but they're not taught.
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  No, they're not taught. No, not at all. The things that you are taught is this
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  is how you put your hands on people.
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  And these are how you write your soap notes. That is
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  pretty much it like if you're looking at a level four qualification like
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  I mean correct me if I'm wrong I could I could be completely wrong but
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  I don't think you are taught anything more
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  than those things you aren't told how to have a
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  different you aren't taught sorry how to have a difficult conversation with
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  somebody how to tell somebody no
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  you are not allowed to do that because it is not safe as a
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  as a patient coming to me you've got this issue if I
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  let you go out back doing carrying on what you're doing you
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  are going to make that worse nobody teaches you how to have that
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  tough conversation no and i think we've all got it
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  so wrong by the way as well like i've messed it up totally especially
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  in my earlier years as massage therapist i've definitely
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  like lost the client mid conversation i've had a few people call me out on the
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  way i was having a conversation with them as well which was horrible at the
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  time but in hindsight very useful and i think when when that happened i was
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  like oh no one's actually taught me how to do this like i don't i'm literally
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  winging it and hopefully it comes across okay.
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  And then that's when I've gone on to do more training, learn more about communication,
• 15:58
  interpersonal skills, building therapeutic relationships.
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  But yeah, no, you're not taught. You're not taught how to do this at all.
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  It's interesting, isn't it? Because if we look at the evolution of what's been
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  taught on courses, originally it was all about the objective,
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  which I guess are the hard skills, so-called hard skills, knowing the way to
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  assess and doing the right kind of METs or whatever.
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  And then even level five used to be more hard skills of different ways to assess
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  and kind of orthopedic testing and stuff like that.
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  And then suddenly or whenever it happens suddenly people
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  start saying well the subjective is quite important actually because these are human beings
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  so they put the emphasis on the subjective but that's when really the
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  more emphasis you put on the subjective that's all about soft skills isn't
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  it because you can spend more time listening to your patient giving
• 16:39
  them opportunity but if you don't know what to do with that information or how to react yeah
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  then so that's I guess where it's moved from
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  suddenly the soft skills are more important yeah I guess
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  the word soft straight away makes it
• 16:52
  sound less important doesn't it it's a bit weird even though
• 16:55
  some of the things best things in life are soft but yeah
• 16:58
  it sounds a bit diminutive doesn't it like it's not so important yeah but
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  yeah so it's interesting you're struggling with so maybe we just drop both of
• 17:06
  them just teach it all together in one way we don't need to have two different
• 17:09
  terms maybe i think so and i think like like enly said i i mean i i've messed
• 17:14
  up before like working with amputees and And the first thing that's come out of my mouth,
• 17:18
  when I remember when I first met Rich, was like, oh, just hop on the couch.
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  I remember that. And I'm like, he's literally got one leg.
• 17:25
  Like, I've just put my foot... And I apologized profusely for it.
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  And then that opened up that conversation as to what is appropriate,
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  what is not appropriate. But I...
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  Obviously, like, I know you have to be careful around the language used and
• 17:39
  the terminology and things like that.
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  But that came out of my mouth because I said it to every single patient that I'd seen before that.
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  I didn't even think about it before it came out of my mouth.
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  But obviously, I learned from that into checking what I say before I say it
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  and making sure that it is appropriate.
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  And sometimes knowing that once something comes out, not just wishing a hole just swallowed you up,
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  just being able to continue and follow on with it and because in
• 18:06
  that circumstance i remember you talking about it when you had that amazing presentation
• 18:09
  at therapy expo with rich and it was just so cool it's one of the
• 18:12
  best things i've seen at therapy expo and i've been going for like since
• 18:15
  2013 it was just so it was so brilliant i mean he told that story and you just
• 18:21
  saw his reaction was like doesn't really doesn't affect me as much as it affects
• 18:24
  you you know it's not a problem at all yeah really interesting let's keep going
• 18:30
  what else soft skills what else that's kind of frustrates you about it or what
• 18:34
  would you like to see done differently.
• 18:39
  Well I think like Emily said I think it kind of links in with the whole online
• 18:45
  course kind of thing that we've said before if you're being taught a course
• 18:48
  online or you're just being given things to read online like powerpoints or
• 18:54
  whatever how are you practicing those skills,
• 18:59
  like if you do a fans on course sometimes you you go to that course and yes
• 19:03
  you do talk to each other you interact with each other but.
• 19:06
  You're never really given a problematic patient to deal with.
• 19:09
  You're never really given anybody that is pretending that they're in really severe pain.
• 19:14
  And you have to think on your feet of like, okay, how do we kind of change gears?
• 19:19
  How do we change tact? How do we adapt this treatment? What are we going to do?
• 19:22
  It's all very, oh yeah, I've got a bit of a pain in my leg.
• 19:26
  Can you just treat it? And then you go ahead and you treat it.
• 19:31
  So maybe we need to start incorporating these more challenging things into courses
• 19:37
  that are being delivered and challenging the people that are,
• 19:40
  I think, because I think overall, ultimately, it'll make people better therapists,
• 19:44
  whatever route they choose to go down.
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  I don't know how practical that is. I don't know how easy that kind of thing is to do.
• 19:53
  I don't know if it's things that people will think are actually important.
• 19:57
  Because the people writing the courses clearly don't think
• 20:00
  that they're important to start with no they're not listed on
• 20:03
  like the syllabus or the curriculum at all are they and just
• 20:07
  from kind of mentoring massage therapists entering
• 20:11
  into like difficult conversations being in difficult circumstances they're feeling
• 20:15
  wildly underprepared to to deal with that we have to do something I do think
• 20:20
  there needs to be more communication-based teaching on massage courses because
• 20:27
  you're not just massaging a body,
• 20:30
  are you? You are working with a person and.
• 20:33
  It just doesn't seem to be available on the majority of courses.
• 20:37
  Can I give you an example of a lady that I'm currently working with who allowed
• 20:40
  me to share what we're currently working on?
• 20:43
  So she identified within her practice that she's incredibly uncomfortable when
• 20:50
  kind of discomfort presents itself in clinic.
• 20:53
  So if somebody says something negative about their body, if somebody's recounting
• 20:57
  like a difficult experience or circumstance, she was noticing that she's very,
• 21:01
  very quick to jump in and say, oh, no, no, no, no, you know.
• 21:05
  Don't say that about yourself or, oh, but you got through that thing and look
• 21:08
  how strong you are and look how amazing you are now.
• 21:10
  And she actually had a client call her out on it and said, I understand what
• 21:14
  you're saying, but you're also trying to minimize my discomfort to make you
• 21:17
  more comfortable in this circumstance.
• 21:19
  Like this is all part of my experience that I've had. Yes, I've come out the
• 21:22
  other side of it and I've learned a lot from it, but we can't discount the difficult
• 21:29
  part that I'm trying to tell you about.
• 21:31
  And it's not my job to make it more palatable for you you need
• 21:34
  to go away and develop your skills on how to to sit with with
• 21:37
  these types of conversations and over the last eight weeks we've developed strategies
• 21:41
  we've identified where she feels deeply uncomfortable what her kind of go-to
• 21:45
  impulsive actions are when people are starting to kind of open up because people
• 21:49
  talk to us you all know this and we've started to make space for more discomfort in conversation,
• 21:56
  when asking people about their pain and she actually got some really nice feedback
• 22:00
  from the same lady a couple of weeks ago.
• 22:03
  I'm really happy. That's lovely for you as an educator. That's really cool.
• 22:08
  Yeah, it's really cool. But we're not taught any of this.
• 22:10
  And a lot of us then go on to kind of teach other people literally through our
• 22:15
  own mistakes when we've got it terribly, horrifically wrong.
• 22:19
  Which, you know, it's great, but
• 22:21
  it would be lovely if there was more conversation around stuff like this.
• 22:24
  Even down to, you know, if earlier on in my career,
• 22:28
  I had a case of Cordra Aquina and I don't know how else to phrase this other
• 22:32
  than I was absolutely shitting myself when that happened because I'd never been
• 22:35
  taught how to then get somebody from the clinic to the hospital and how to have
• 22:41
  that conversation and I winged it and it was, you know,
• 22:44
  fine and the person was great and you know everything was sorted but
• 22:47
  just having those conversations like what if you have an emergency
• 22:49
  in the clinic what if you have somebody behaving inappropriately within
• 22:53
  your clinic how to hold space for difficult conversations what if
• 22:56
  a person is asking you to do something outside of your scope of practice none of
• 22:59
  this is ever really taught on courses yeah
• 23:02
  it makes up a huge part of well as a massage therapist
• 23:05
  it makes up a huge part of my practice I don't know about you
• 23:08
  Carla yeah I think so and I think it's important
• 23:11
  like we always talk about scope of
• 23:14
  practice and things like that and knowing knowing your own
• 23:17
  boundaries and being comfortable with those boundaries
• 23:20
  and being able to say honestly to your patient
• 23:23
  this is not my area of expertise and I think I need to refer you to this person
• 23:30
  or we need to refer you for a scan because we need to know what is going on
• 23:34
  with that injury or whatever it is or even the simple things like you say.
• 23:41
  Knowing the symptoms of something and going, I cannot put my hands on you today,
• 23:45
  you need to go straight to A&E or you need to go where you need to go. Like they're.
• 23:52
  Like you say, I don't, I think we were taught it a little bit,
• 23:56
  but not really in depth kind of.
• 23:58
  I wasn't at all. Not at all. And I think having those hard conversations is never, it's never easy.
• 24:07
  And people are like, oh, it gets easier. No, I don't think it really does.
• 24:10
  Like we hate having those conversations because we are essentially stopping
• 24:13
  someone from doing something that they want to do.
• 24:16
  Whether it's coming to you for treatment or whether it's playing a sport.
• 24:20
  You're essentially saying no to that person and that
• 24:23
  is terrible and but you have to be able to explain it in a way that makes them
• 24:32
  the center of it and makes it their well-being you're doing it for them so that
• 24:36
  they can come back to you later down the line once everything has been checked and,
• 24:41
  you're happy with and and things like that no
• 24:45
  matter how much they push for that well I'm here now
• 24:48
  why can't you just see me I'll sign a waiver that says you can see me no like
• 24:53
  I absolutely I'm not putting my hands on you you need me to go and get this
• 24:57
  sorted but there would be people who are freshly qualified or whatever that
• 25:00
  would cave and go oh okay let's see what we can do for you and that's really difficult.
• 25:07
  That's kind of really hard to put that, draw a hard line in the sand,
• 25:11
  essentially, and then be like, come back to me once you've had it checked.
• 25:15
  Once you've got the all clear, and then we can do that.
• 25:20
  And you aren't taught that. You aren't taught that at all.
• 25:24
  And those those circumstances are often
• 25:26
  met with such panic by therapists I have conversations with
• 25:30
  therapists that have just you know descended into
• 25:33
  panic about what they should have done and what they shouldn't have done and and
• 25:35
  then they're you know they're replaying it for like weeks on end
• 25:38
  in their their head and they've not been taught how to write their
• 25:42
  notes up efficiently and you know concisely as to
• 25:45
  what's happened and I think this is
• 25:48
  something that we need to seriously look at getting
• 25:52
  onto courses i don't know how i have very little control i have no
• 25:54
  control over what's on courses but it is definitely
• 25:57
  where i think massage therapists are struggling i don't
• 26:01
  know about sports therapists but in massage therapy you know
• 26:04
  people coming to us i once
• 26:07
  had somebody come into a clinic with an open fracture and thought massage would
• 26:09
  help that like that's you know people come in with these
• 26:12
  wild things and you have to
• 26:15
  be able to kind of confidently have those conversations about why
• 26:18
  this is not a suitable treatment approach and i can do
• 26:21
  that i'm happy to do that now it doesn't bother me at all but at the
• 26:24
  start of my practice i didn't have a clue what i was doing i was just fumbling my
• 26:27
  way through it it's interesting because
• 26:30
  the only kind of one solution that springs to mind and i think this is part
• 26:35
  of the problem is the reason why you know they say like oh you start learning
• 26:39
  the day you start working when people come working through the door it's because
• 26:42
  then you're in the the real you're on the shop floor and you've got real people
• 26:45
  come to you with real problems, you start realizing I never paid for any of this.
• 26:48
  So the solution seems to be that maybe in education, if you're working to,
• 26:53
  if you're, if you're studying to work with people in pain, then it's almost
• 26:57
  as if it needs to be patient led education as well.
• 27:01
  You know, you need to have people coming in.
• 27:04
  And then using them as real case studies so that these things do come up.
• 27:09
  How that would happen, I'm not quite sure. But at the moment,
• 27:11
  it always seems to be the teacher who's kind of.
• 27:14
  I mean, it depends on the course, but whether they try and be a guru or not,
• 27:19
  the people on the course kind of look up and go, wow, this person can feel a
• 27:22
  hair through a yellow books or something, or they're just amazing practitioners.
• 27:26
  So straight away, you've got that unequal kind of level where they just tell
• 27:29
  you stuff and you believe it.
• 27:31
  Whereas really, it needs to be external people
• 27:34
  people coming in and and then letting them talk
• 27:37
  about their experiences and then you then thinking right how am
• 27:40
  I gonna how am I gonna be a massage therapist if this is happening I
• 27:43
  also I also think and this is just a bugbear of mine just
• 27:46
  because I've studied it for so long having some
• 27:50
  evidence based information around what pain actually
• 27:53
  is because we're still structuralizing pain
• 27:56
  so frequently in people and of course you know in the
• 27:59
  case of an injury or a pathology that's really important but a
• 28:01
  lot of people are being assigned these structural narratives in pain
• 28:05
  from a massage therapist that shouldn't be doing that anyway and
• 28:08
  it's just total misinformation it's not
• 28:11
  in line with any of the evidence the communication is all
• 28:14
  off people are being there's a lot of an intended harm I
• 28:17
  think is what I'm trying to say being caused by maybe inexperienced communicators
• 28:24
  I don't know if there's a better way to put that but but also on the flip side
• 28:28
  of that if you've got somebody who I don't know let's say they do a level three
• 28:32
  qualification they then get let loose in the wild and they probably were going
• 28:36
  to go and work on their own.
• 28:38
  Like then they're not supervised they're not got anybody to
• 28:41
  talk to they've not got anybody to ask about oh this
• 28:44
  situation happened in clinic and I wasn't
• 28:47
  really sure how to respond so what could I have done differently they're sat
• 28:52
  with themselves constantly to sort of be like like say just winging it and yes
• 29:00
  they might get through it but then are they actually going to learn from it
• 29:04
  because There's nobody to talk to about it.
• 29:09
  Can I ask a question about sports therapy, Carla? Like when you graduate,
• 29:14
  do you have any supervision at all?
• 29:16
  Like once you graduate, how does it work? With the degree, obviously.
• 29:20
  No. No, okay. It's the short of it. It's the same.
• 29:24
  It depends where you go. It depends where you go into work.
• 29:28
  Obviously, if you go into work in a clinic space, if it's multidisciplinary,
• 29:33
  yes, you might have somebody...
• 29:35
  To do with that but also I think some of it depends as well because the I mean
• 29:42
  the course will have evolved since I graduated and things like that and things
• 29:45
  may have changed you have supervision on your placement but.
• 29:50
  It's not like someone's in the room with you 24-7 or if you're pitch side,
• 29:53
  it's not like somebody's going with you to check that you're assessing a knee
• 29:58
  properly or, do you know what I mean?
• 30:01
  Those kind of things are just, you've been taught how to assess that knee.
• 30:05
  So therefore you go do it because that's how you're going to learn. And I do agree.
• 30:09
  Sometimes on learning, you need to do yourself because that is the best,
• 30:14
  to learn by doing is one of the best ways to do it.
• 30:16
  But having somebody that you know you
• 30:19
  can go to to say I've done
• 30:22
  this I'm not really sure can you
• 30:25
  please help me or can you please check is there anything that
• 30:28
  I've missed and I've done that I've been away with a
• 30:31
  UK ultimate team and I had an
• 30:34
  ankle that I assessed and I was like I'm just
• 30:38
  really not sure like have I missed something and I asked one of
• 30:40
  the physios that I was working with and we went through
• 30:43
  it step by step and he said what have you already you done what
• 30:46
  have you ruled out and I told him everything and he
• 30:49
  was like you have done everything that I would do up to
• 30:52
  this point the next step is this and he
• 30:55
  taught me through it he showed me how to do it and but I
• 30:58
  had that there I could and I had the I also not big-headed but I had the confidence
• 31:04
  to ask him for that help rather than try and muddle through it myself and that's
• 31:09
  that's another another I think
• 31:11
  point where everybody feels that they need to be the hero and fix it and.
• 31:16
  Yeah like yeah it's not that's not our role the patient
• 31:19
  should be at the center of everything that we do and ask
• 31:22
  for help if you need it or having the confidence to say to a patient or a client
• 31:26
  as well I don't know I can either refer you to this person they'd be more equipped
• 31:30
  to work with you or leave it with me and I will find out and I think people
• 31:33
  are really frightened to say that for numerous reasons I think kind of people
• 31:37
  obviously want to you know demonstrate that they know what they're doing maybe
• 31:39
  it might be a financial loss to them but,
• 31:42
  I've never, ever had a client say to me,
• 31:46
  you should have just known. I think they're just more grateful that I'm going
• 31:48
  to find out and then come back with more information than pretend I know something that I don't know.
• 31:53
  People can tell when you don't know. Oh my God, so much.
• 31:57
  If you don't know, they will absolutely be able to tell.
• 32:01
  So much. If you're trying to hide it, if you're looking like you're bothered about it.
• 32:05
  If you don't know, they will be like, I'm not coming back because I don't know what they're doing.
• 32:09
  It's interesting. I think this is one of the, I mean, I was listening to you
• 32:12
  talking about having a physio to ask questions to. And that was the story of
• 32:16
  my introduction to therapy.
• 32:17
  I was lucky enough to be working in a clinic, family-run clinic, where there was.
• 32:22
  A couple of extended scope physios, there was an osteopath, there was a podiatrist,
• 32:26
  and we were all in separate rooms, but the number of times I was opening up
• 32:30
  and creeping to another one, blah, blah, blah, this is going on, blah, blah, blah.
• 32:33
  And so often it is that reassurance of, what have you done? You've done that? You've tested for that?
• 32:37
  It's exactly what I would have done. It's fine. Or maybe something occasionally,
• 32:40
  less often than you'd expect would be, oh, it could be this.
• 32:45
  Maybe book them in with me, okay? And I'll give them back to you, but book them in with me.
• 32:48
  And that's so important. And so I'm thinking maybe one of the problems for massage
• 32:52
  therapists and some sports therapists is when you're working by yourself, you're just released.
• 32:57
  And I've always been trying to think of some kind of, you know,
• 33:01
  I joked this year would be the year of collaboration, but I love the idea of,
• 33:05
  and I'm not going to start another project, but if someone out there wants to
• 33:08
  take it to Dragon's Den or something, but just a networking community where
• 33:12
  the norm is once a fortnight or once a month, you find somebody on the map near
• 33:17
  you and you just go and spend the day with them.
• 33:19
  Just shadow them with the patient's permission there might be some patients don't
• 33:21
  like the idea of it just shadowing and in between patients having
• 33:24
  a chat what do you think about that and then reversing it you go to the other persons so
• 33:28
  we break down this competitive kind of idea of i'm
• 33:30
  trying to compete with all the other people i've got to be the best because
• 33:32
  that's rubbish yeah it's rubbish i um sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you that's
• 33:38
  fine i put a post up a while ago about how i have a lot of concerns about massage
• 33:43
  therapists that go and practice in kind of almost complete isolation with no supervision.
• 33:48
  Because I came from a wonderful clinic for three years that was multidisciplinary
• 33:52
  and we shadowed each other and we sat in on each other. It was great.
• 33:55
  And I'm very grateful for that. But I know not everybody has access to that.
• 33:58
  But I put a post up on my Framework Talks Massage last year around my concerns
• 34:04
  with massage therapists going into a really isolated practice where they're
• 34:08
  not really conversing with other people where there's no support.
• 34:11
  And it really frightens me. I just...
• 34:15
  I don't think I've ever met a massage therapist that's operating like that,
• 34:19
  that feels supported and safe and they're kind of just muddling through.
• 34:24
  And that's a bit of a scary place to be, I think. I think it also leads to some
• 34:27
  quite dangerous practices and out of scope practices and that might move us
• 34:32
  nicely on to level three therapists treating pathologized tissue or injured tissue.
• 34:40
  I just I think it's I
• 34:43
  completely agree with what you're saying like I do think that is a
• 34:46
  scary place to be in and it's a scary thing to be able
• 34:49
  to sort of just go but also on the flip side of that you have to have other
• 34:56
  therapists other clinicians that are willing to work with you and that are willing
• 35:01
  and understand your role and I like that that whole instance at,
• 35:08
  Ultima I'm very fortunate in the fact that I was away with two people a physio
• 35:12
  and an osteopath who we all get on so well we all know each other's strengths
• 35:17
  and weaknesses and we can happily,
• 35:19
  ask a question without them going what do you mean you don't know what that
• 35:24
  is like you're not made to feel stupid but I know that if there's something
• 35:28
  that I'm not 100% confident on I could say to them please can you have a look
• 35:32
  at this and help me or and vice versa and there'll be certain things that they've
• 35:37
  my friend who's an osteopath.
• 35:39
  Not great at taping with K-Tap and he will openly be like, can you show me how
• 35:43
  to do that so I can learn? I'll be like, yeah, we'll do it together.
• 35:46
  Like I would, I love that and being able to do that.
• 35:50
  And I think that is a bit more easier in a, in a sporting environment because
• 35:54
  you are in like an open environment. You're not in a clinic room.
• 35:57
  You're not isolated. So it is a little bit easier on that, that kind of sense.
• 36:02
  But then also you feel like you are being watched
• 36:05
  all the time sometimes because people are like if there's four
• 36:08
  therapists and only one patient comes in and you're a bit like everyone's watching
• 36:11
  what you're doing like make sure you get it right yeah so it
• 36:16
  swings around about a little bit yeah I've had to make a conscious effort
• 36:19
  to kind of build a network of different MSK professionals
• 36:22
  around because I work on my own I go into people's homes I work with you
• 36:25
  know organizations I like I'm essentially working independently
• 36:29
  but I've made a really conscious effort to make sure it's not alone because I
• 36:33
  don't think that's a particularly solid place to be working from but
• 36:35
  you do need to reach out to people also i think
• 36:39
  i'm gonna try and say this in a polite way
• 36:41
  if you really want focused one or one time and
• 36:45
  advice be willing to pay for that from another therapist as
• 36:48
  well i think there's this i think instagram makes
• 36:51
  everybody very accessible and that's absolutely fine but when
• 36:55
  i've got kind of somebody messaging me saying oh can you teach me about pain
• 36:58
  and i'm like where where are we even starting here
• 37:01
  and it's it's these kind of back and i think we don't
• 37:04
  do that very well in massage therapy i have mentors that i
• 37:07
  pay to support my practice and you
• 37:10
  know things that i'm finding finding difficult and i understand it's not accessible
• 37:12
  for everybody i fully appreciate that but i think we have to be very careful
• 37:16
  about just launching into dms and asking for the world because that seems to
• 37:19
  be happening quite a lot at the moment maybe that's just a little bit of a bugbear
• 37:22
  of mine you know you can advise where you can on different points and stuff
• 37:26
  but if you're really wanting to get in depth with something, I think.
• 37:29
  But also, it would be interesting to know.
• 37:33
  These people that are doing that kind of thing, that are wanting help and they
• 37:36
  are asking for help, great that they're asking for help.
• 37:39
  But it'd be interesting to know their background and education and how they've
• 37:43
  done their qualifications, where they've done their qualifications.
• 37:46
  And also, in addition to that, spending a lot of money on more technique courses,
• 37:52
  which seems to be happening quite a lot.
• 37:54
  And my general annoyance that some massage therapists are doing spinal manipulation
• 37:58
  courses, which they should not be doing because it's nowhere near our scope of practice.
• 38:03
  You can ask Tristan about that, Matt, next week. Week after.
• 38:07
  Week after, sorry, apologies.
• 38:09
  Meekins and Cormac next week, the week after. Oh, yeah, sorry,
• 38:11
  apologies. God, sorry, Adam, sorry.
• 38:14
  Great stuff. I'm so excited by it. I love the fact, I knew this would happen,
• 38:18
  is you're both using such kind of personal stories and experiences from both
• 38:22
  when you were less experienced therapists and what's happening now and that
• 38:24
  and mentoring other people. It's so good.
• 38:28
  It's kind of what we're talking about. People are going to learn from you guys
• 38:30
  because you're talking from real-life scenarios.
• 38:33
  It's not just from a textbook, and you're sharing stuff, which is going to mean a lot to a lot of people.
• 38:37
  I'm just conscious that a few questions have come through, so I'm just going
• 38:41
  to spring them on you if that's all right.
• 38:43
  I know you two have got big shoulders you can handle this, metaphorically speaking. Let's have a look.
• 38:47
  Gary just makes a point. Gary, founder of the STA, just makes a point.
• 38:49
  This was earlier on, I think, in the conversation.
• 38:51
  Unfortunately, the occupational competencies which inform the curriculum,
• 38:54
  which the training provider syllabus are grossly outdated, with increases in
• 38:58
  short course provision standards are falling.
• 39:01
  It's true. And this is where really, we had this conversation a few times before,
• 39:05
  but it's where the private sector has got a lot of responsibility because the
• 39:11
  ones which are just run by the massive schools,
• 39:14
  they're going to take ages to change all of their exam papers and all their syllabi and stuff.
• 39:17
  It's the private ones who can make a massive difference. But...
• 39:22
  People are either one, not willing to pay the prices which it costs to run,
• 39:25
  you know, a training course or something or massage school or something,
• 39:28
  which can be more than people expect to pay.
• 39:30
  And two, there's the other end. The private schools have got to treat that responsibility,
• 39:33
  you know, morally well and ethically and not charge ridiculous amounts of money. So it's tricky.
• 39:39
  I think recently though, certain things are,
• 39:44
  people see a massage
• 39:47
  qualification as an easy way to make money out of people because they're like
• 39:52
  I'll just put a load of slides online someone can do it in a day off we go and
• 39:56
  I've just made 400 quid on that do you know it doesn't matter how many people
• 40:00
  come into it and that in itself to me is dangerous it's just as dangerous as,
• 40:05
  them like if you can go online and do a qualification where you do not put your
• 40:10
  hands on somebody and then you're let out into the wide world and you're gonna
• 40:15
  be like oh yeah come see me because I can fix all your problems and let me put your hands on,
• 40:21
  that's wild absolutely it is
• 40:24
  wild like and and again
• 40:29
  i think that's it all comes down to like the governance and stuff like that
• 40:32
  and i i don't really think i don't know how you change that like how do you
• 40:37
  stop people doing these stupid courses that are one day or that completely online
• 40:42
  like that's just it's just outrageous to be really honest.
• 40:50
  It's tricky we kind of talked about this when we had
• 40:53
  our collaboration and chat with gary and
• 40:56
  we had representatives from the it was great actually from the
• 40:59
  society sports therapists and kate williams was there we also had representatives
• 41:02
  from the sports therapy organization as well as gary from the sta and we kind
• 41:06
  of chatted about this how how can we what can we do i think the most valuable
• 41:12
  answer was this we need to help therapists understand the benefits of belonging
• 41:17
  to a reputable professional association, that's where the education comes from.
• 41:21
  If people actually belonged to a professional association which was giving out
• 41:25
  evidence-informed kind of information,
• 41:28
  and I think we know the STIL, obviously, Gary, thank you very much,
• 41:32
  but as we collaborate with people like the SST and the modern STO,
• 41:37
  then we are kind of on the same page. We are putting out qualities.
• 41:40
  There's some great minds.
• 41:41
  So we kind of thought together we need to increase the amount of people who
• 41:45
  are belonging to a professional association because I think it was Kate from
• 41:49
  the SST who came up with the fact that probably over 50%,
• 41:53
  maybe even 60% of sports therapists out there aren't with a professional association.
• 41:58
  They're just going solo. They don't have to be part of it.
• 42:01
  And they probably don't even realize the benefits of being part of a professional
• 42:04
  association. You know, I confess
• 42:04
  something. I'm not part of a professional association at the moment.
• 42:08
  Get out. Get off my head. I know. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
• 42:11
  I'm sorry. We've lost Emily Gill, but Carla.
• 42:15
  You've got your, you've got your association in your head whenever people ask me, I'm always,
• 42:21
  Thank you, Carla. Thank you very much. Don't get me wrong. The STA is wonderful.
• 42:24
  I'm actually bashing an online course.
• 42:26
  I think the way that the world is going, online elements are important.
• 42:32
  You can do things at home. You can 100%. Let's learn your anatomy online.
• 42:38
  Yeah. But the fundamental skills of putting your hands on people,
• 42:43
  having conversations with people, they should be in-person elements.
• 42:50
  You shouldn't be able to get away with...
• 42:52
  Doing those online in my opinion like I
• 42:56
  just think and the way that some
• 42:59
  of these courses are sort of portrayed online is the wording is deliberately
• 43:04
  misleading about the title you can give yourself afterwards and then the confusion
• 43:12
  that comes with that and then like this whole.
• 43:19
  Misrepresentation of your qualification like I
• 43:23
  will happily say it's a bit of a bugbear of mine when somebody who has done
• 43:26
  a level four sports massage therapy course goes out and calls themselves a sports
• 43:31
  therapist like I've spent three years at university to earn that title you might
• 43:36
  have done a one-day course or a two-day course or whatever it might be,
• 43:40
  and you're using sports therapy as your and
• 43:43
  I know we can't change that I know we can't it's not
• 43:46
  a protected title but for me
• 43:49
  you should be proud of the qualification you've just done the reason
• 43:52
  you've done it is because you that's what you wanted to do so
• 43:55
  therefore own your title and know
• 43:58
  what you're doing like with that and be confident
• 44:01
  in that I think we've we've seen as well
• 44:04
  because we we've kind of been doing some research over the last week looking
• 44:07
  at you know courses and and discussions around online courses and stuff and
• 44:11
  And some of the text on courses will start discussing sports massage and then
• 44:18
  they'll just jump to the term sports therapist and they use them interchangeably
• 44:21
  throughout the text. And it's like, it's not even the same role.
• 44:24
  And if we're confused as professionals, how are the public supposed to know? Yeah, they're not.
• 44:30
  Like, how are they supposed to know the differentiation between the different
• 44:35
  levels, what people can do? to like, I just...
• 44:42
  I don't know. I think it's probably a sign. If you've just finished a course
• 44:45
  and from day one, you're changing your name from what you learned on the course.
• 44:51
  And, you know, it's kind of a sign that the course didn't really do a very good
• 44:55
  job at showing you, you know, how good and useful it is, what you've learned.
• 44:59
  If you've done a massage course straight away thinking, oh yeah, that was very good.
• 45:02
  I paid three grand, but I'm going to call myself a sports therapist because I'm not.
• 45:05
  Then obviously they haven't taught you the massive amount of help and what you
• 45:09
  can do through, through massage.
• 45:10
  So it's it's tricky but my point was with the professional
• 45:13
  association it is so tricky for the public to make
• 45:16
  decision you know it's easier for us
• 45:19
  because we've been around the block particularly me not so much you
• 45:22
  two but you're very experienced in terms of years and and
• 45:25
  we know we can see it we cut through the crap but for
• 45:28
  the majority of therapists out there have been you know around
• 45:31
  for so long they get we all do we get pulled in by the advertising
• 45:35
  and the kind of clever language features and persuasive devices
• 45:38
  and stuff so the idea is you've got people like gary who
• 45:41
  just trawls every day through his sunday times looking for any excuse to call
• 45:45
  people up and say this is wrong you shouldn't be saying this and you need to
• 45:48
  yeah just contact your pa and say i'm thinking of doing this course and then
• 45:51
  and whoever is there will look it up check out um if it has even got you know
• 45:56
  specifications and learning objectives and that sort of stuff and sort of language of.
• 46:01
  The criteria there is not sufficient. It's not giving enough information and
• 46:04
  they're doing this and that. And I wouldn't recommend it personally.
• 46:06
  You know, that could save people a lot of time and money.
• 46:09
  And I think hopefully we're moving slightly towards that now.
• 46:12
  That's the idea of the STA and the STA and the SST getting together.
• 46:15
  Whereas in the past, it used to be competitive a little bit back in the day
• 46:19
  because it was kind of more of a money-making thing for some of the organizations.
• 46:22
  But now it really is, geez, we've got a lot of responsibility.
• 46:25
  We can really help here if we work together.
• 46:27
  We can help advance the whole profession and not
• 46:30
  make mass-ass therapists feel the need to call themselves sports therapists
• 46:33
  or even worse a physio you know but um
• 46:36
  can i just add something to that i genuinely think
• 46:39
  as well with a lot of massage therapists or people that
• 46:42
  i have conversations with and obviously it could just be an echo chamber
• 46:45
  massage therapists are genuinely interested in
• 46:48
  evidence-based practice but if you've not come from
• 46:50
  a background so like i i was taught you know
• 46:53
  evidence-based practice at university it was my entire job for
• 46:56
  a really long time and it's it's
• 46:59
  you know it's a scary place to come from if you feel like you're having to overall overhaul
• 47:03
  your entire practice which you're not by the way but I feel
• 47:05
  like loads of massage therapists are interested in it they are interested
• 47:08
  in understanding pain they are interested in understanding you know how to communicate
• 47:14
  and for lack of a better phrase I can't think of a different phrase but how
• 47:17
  to like effectively hold space for people in difficult circumstances work with
• 47:21
  different people understand how we can integrate touch and massage into different circumstances,
• 47:26
  but it just seems that that happens way after they've completed their course.
• 47:32
  And I think Instagram's a great place because you connect with people and it
• 47:34
  makes you kind of challenge what you think sometimes, doesn't it?
• 47:37
  But that seems to be where it's happening, but it'd be ideal if it could happen
• 47:42
  a little bit earlier on rather than massage therapists feeling like they're
• 47:46
  totally incapable and having to completely throw out their entire practice,
• 47:49
  which you don't have to do, by the way.
• 47:51
  You're probably already working in a largely evidence-based way,
• 47:54
  but it'd be nicer if it maybe could happen a
• 47:57
  little bit earlier on in training rather than a couple of years down the line
• 48:01
  when you've got a massage therapist struggling in their practice but I think
• 48:05
  and then that kind of comes back to what we were saying earlier isn't it being
• 48:08
  taught how to how to communicate with people but then also as as a therapist
• 48:13
  that person that comes to see you.
• 48:16
  Sometimes will unload a lot on oh yeah and then it's kind of like what do you
• 48:20
  do with that as well Yeah.
• 48:22
  And yes, you will be taught certain elements of how to refer out and how to like talk to people.
• 48:31
  But again, if you've done a completely online course, you don't know anybody
• 48:35
  because you've not been on a physical like day to day with people.
• 48:39
  So you've not networked that way.
• 48:40
  If somebody unloads a really traumatic event on you, your mental health is important.
• 48:45
  Where do you offload that to somebody else? Like you probably don't know.
• 48:49
  Like you've probably never been taught where to look, where to go,
• 48:52
  who to speak to, how to process it, that kind of thing.
• 48:55
  100%. And I think all those things are just as important and should really be on courses.
• 49:03
  And not just sort of just being given lip service, if you like,
• 49:08
  and say, oh, yeah, here's your resources. Go on here if you need them, kind of.
• 49:13
  How do you productively use them and build them into your everyday practices?
• 49:19
  And what do you do from there? I think it's very like you have to find those
• 49:23
  things yourself, don't you?
• 49:24
  If you are able to do that. And not everybody has the resources or capacity to do that.
• 49:31
  But I know I've worked with a couple of massage therapists that have had really
• 49:34
  difficult experiences and, you know, obviously recommended that because I'm
• 49:39
  not a therapist, I'll listen, but I'm obviously not a therapist.
• 49:41
  And they go and maybe seek some professional, you know, support with what they've
• 49:47
  experienced, but they didn't have a clue how to do that or whether they were
• 49:50
  just making a big deal out of nothing.
• 49:51
  Or I don't know, I think, like we were saying, we have a lot of unsupported massage therapists.
• 49:56
  I don't know if it's the same in sports therapy practicing in
• 49:59
  isolation really struggling because we've never been taught any
• 50:02
  of this other stuff outside of the hands-on kind of treatment I think it is
• 50:06
  I think they do struggle as well and I think a lot more or what I've seen not
• 50:12
  everybody but a lot of sports therapists that go into a role within sport very quickly get termed a,
• 50:20
  physiotherapist okay and are very happy with that because they're like and whenever
• 50:25
  anybody calls me a physio i often like straight away i'm like i'm not a physio
• 50:29
  i've been called a physio i'm like.
• 50:32
  That is not my role that's not what i'm here for i'm a
• 50:35
  sports therapist and i explain that to people really clearly
• 50:38
  like i i don't what i don't want to get drawn into this mislabeled community
• 50:43
  and add to the confusion of everything else and but also i could get into trouble
• 50:48
  for that yeah same i don't want to be in trouble for something that is essentially
• 50:54
  not my fault if that makes sense It's a perception thing,
• 50:57
  but there are certain sports that it does happen in more than others.
• 51:03
  But I think, again, people need to be confident to say, that's not me.
• 51:08
  That's not for me. And we do have different skill sets. We should be proud of
• 51:13
  those skill sets. Absolutely.
• 51:15
  Definitely. I think so many massage therapists say they're just a massage therapist. And I'm like, no.
• 51:21
  But when I was a biomedical scientist, I'd be like, I'm just a biomed.
• 51:24
  I'm not a doctor. It's a different skill set.
• 51:27
  It's a totally different skill set. But it's, yeah, it's interesting how many
• 51:31
  massage therapists are like, oh, I'm just a massage therapist.
• 51:33
  I'm like, no, you're a massage therapist.
• 51:36
  Own your title. You do amazing work.
• 51:39
  Absolutely. Absolutely. cool okay well look that's that's a one i'm going to
• 51:43
  try and think of maybe for,
• 51:45
  putting theory into practice so the first one i think that's really
• 51:47
  good you're not just a massage therapist so massage therapists in particular
• 51:50
  there if you feel you're just a massage therapist then you
• 51:53
  are missing a chunk and probably a lot of that is understanding of soft
• 51:56
  skills we've kind of talked about tonight so when people
• 51:59
  are going oh what cbd should i do then maybe move away
• 52:02
  from this idea of i need some more traditional hard skills like
• 52:05
  different ways of manipulating or doing whatever and and
• 52:08
  think about some soft skills and try and learn some stuff about pain
• 52:11
  from yeah yeah i would love that or can
• 52:14
  i fill your instagram dns now i can
• 52:17
  recommend some courses we'll make sure there's a lot of
• 52:20
  we'll make sure that there's some uh yeah some good links in
• 52:23
  the show notes for people who are interested in yeah courses like
• 52:26
  that but yes that's one takeaway you're not
• 52:28
  just a massage therapist what else would you like listeners
• 52:32
  to take away from the chat we've had today what else could they put into practice
• 52:35
  and maybe do would you recommend i would say make sure that any course that
• 52:41
  you do choose to do has a benefit to your practice that you are actually going
• 52:47
  to do something but also that it has a face-to-face,
• 52:50
  element to it and yes that may involve you traveling somewhere or a little bit
• 52:55
  but i think you will get far more from it doing that than it being 100% online.
• 53:04
  And it also allows you to network with
• 53:09
  other people loads of soft skills aren't there when
• 53:12
  you're mixing when you go to a conference and yeah yeah that's where you and
• 53:14
  that's the stuff which kind of you walk away with with learning
• 53:18
  something mixing with other therapists which make just remind me that we have
• 53:22
  got in case you haven't seen there are sta local conferences happening around
• 53:25
  the country check the sta either the open page or the members page for details
• 53:30
  but that's a wonderful place and it's great that gary and the team have been
• 53:33
  setting them up It's a great chance not just to go and listen to the speaker,
• 53:37
  but just to mix with other therapists and talk about things like this,
• 53:40
  about your worries, concerns, and sharing information.
• 53:43
  You could learn a lot from them. So check them out, all details.
• 53:45
  I'll put some details of them into the podcast as well.
• 53:48
  So that's cool. Maybe I'll just add maybe if you are with a professional association,
• 53:52
  use them all. Hold them accountable.
• 53:54
  You're paying money to the PA to give you advice on things like this.
• 53:58
  They should be doing their homework. For example, Gary has said in here,
• 54:00
  there's currently a level five course completely online, £399 from a popular
• 54:06
  training provider, who also deliver manipulations, needling,
• 54:10
  etc. to level threes and online.
• 54:12
  And that's why the STA don't accept them for CPD or qualifications.
• 54:15
  So yeah with the STA you can always ask Gary about stuff like that if he doesn't
• 54:20
  know what the course is like he'll investigate it and it'll be totally unbiased
• 54:22
  it's not a personal thing it's not attacking there's no ad homonyms or anything
• 54:25
  it's just looking from an educational perspective as whether that course is
• 54:29
  fitting the criteria whether the educators are within their scope of practice
• 54:33
  whether they're giving all the information that course needs to give,
• 54:36
  in their breakdown so yeah and if you're not with
• 54:39
  a professional association maybe look into it okay maybe chat to Kate Williams
• 54:43
  at the SST if you're a sports therapist graduate sports therapist they've got
• 54:46
  loads of stuff going on there or if you prefer you could stick with the STA
• 54:50
  and have a chat with Gary you've got Sarah Catlow chair of the STO sports therapy
• 54:54
  organization so you can chat with her but just.
• 54:58
  Collaborate work with professionals i think
• 55:01
  as well just just to add a little caveat in
• 55:04
  there you don't have to always agree
• 55:08
  with somebody to support them yeah like you
• 55:11
  can challenge something and be like well actually
• 55:14
  i don't agree with that but i will support you in what.
• 55:18
  You are wanting to do or the way that you want to
• 55:20
  go because we don't all do everything the same way the same way
• 55:23
  as you might try something with one patient and it doesn't work
• 55:26
  but you try it with someone else and it works perfectly like we can
• 55:29
  have that in our professional relationships as well like it
• 55:32
  doesn't have to be all butterflies and
• 55:35
  rainbows all the time yeah and I'm not a big
• 55:38
  fan of cancel culture at all like obviously if somebody says
• 55:40
  something deeply horrifically offensive that's a different story but
• 55:43
  I think we've kind of gotten into a weird phase where
• 55:46
  like oh somebody says something I don't like so I'm just going to stop listening to
• 55:49
  every single thing they say and I think we actively have
• 55:52
  to I don't know whether I just want to annoy myself a
• 55:55
  lot but I actively go and look for people that I really don't agree with
• 55:58
  and sit with kind of how that's making me feel why
• 56:01
  is it making me so uncomfortable why am I
• 56:04
  getting so annoyed by what they're saying but I think it's it's helpful it
• 56:07
  is helpful because we have to learn to
• 56:10
  sit with other people's opinions and viewpoints without just deciding
• 56:13
  to cut them off because they're not the same as our own and obviously that is
• 56:17
  an incredibly nuanced conversation but yeah I think we have to improve having
• 56:24
  conversations where we don't agree with everything without ad hominem attacks
• 56:29
  because that's what seems to happen on social media all the time.
• 56:33
  Very cool. And with regards to what we were talking about with reaching out
• 56:36
  to other clinicians, have you got any advice?
• 56:38
  Imagine the massage therapist is listening, thinking, I'd love to go and kind
• 56:41
  of try and team up with another clinic, just go and visit them.
• 56:45
  And maybe there's a physio there I could have a chat with. Or what do you recommend
• 56:47
  people do? How would they go about doing that?
• 56:49
  Well, Carla messaged me and just said, do you want to get a coffee?
• 56:52
  That was how we ended up meeting. Reach out, you'd be surprised. Yeah.
• 56:55
  But I think just ask, just be a human and ask. And the worst that will happen is they'll say no.
• 57:01
  It's not the end of the world. You can survive that.
• 57:05
  That's a good message. You will survive that. Again, you know,
• 57:09
  again, with the Professional Association, there's coffee chats on the STA and
• 57:13
  you can meet people. There's networking events.
• 57:15
  So you don't have to jump straight away if you're not quite sure.
• 57:17
  It's good to have a bit of caution.
• 57:18
  There's quite a lot of free like online communities that
• 57:21
  you can join i'm part of pain geeks with laura rasbone
• 57:25
  and that's fantastic that's really great but yeah
• 57:28
  like you were saying and also the facebook groups as well like hands
• 57:31
  on herb and you know the sta and your new venture
• 57:34
  map the neurodivergent yeah clinicians group
• 57:37
  like it's they're so they're such lovely places to meet people and
• 57:41
  you probably end up talking to people that are in your area but you don't actually realize
• 57:44
  all boils down the communication reaching out
• 57:47
  I like you said just thinking they say no it's
• 57:50
  not gonna die if you say no you're gonna be absolutely fine
• 57:53
  it's good it's good good good right my
• 57:58
  OCD therapy has given me a very high like discomfort tolerance
• 58:01
  that I'm like if somebody just says no I'm like all right okay have a
• 58:04
  nice day but I think I think as well I think some of
• 58:07
  that comes with time like because
• 58:10
  when I very first started out I'd be like oh my god what
• 58:13
  if they say no what if i've done something wrong and i'm really annoying them and then they
• 58:15
  don't want to speak to me again yeah like whereas now i'm
• 58:18
  very much the same as you if i can help somebody i 100
• 58:21
  will but absolutely there might be a time where
• 58:24
  i'm like look i absolutely i really want
• 58:27
  to help you but i don't have time for this right now so i'm really
• 58:30
  sorry but no and that's not a personal attack that's
• 58:33
  nothing to be taken personally which it can very easily
• 58:36
  be taken personally oh my god they don't want to help me they don't want to.
• 58:38
  Do this but we all do have busy lives and we have to make we have to make time
• 58:43
  for ourselves as well we have to put those barriers in place and sometimes no
• 58:49
  unfortunately is the answer you get but it isn't the end of the world you try again later on yeah,
• 58:54
  You'll be fine. Great advice. Very good advice. We like that.
• 58:59
  Right, look, suddenly, I don't know, last time we looked at the clock,
• 59:02
  it was like 20 past and now it's already 9 o'clock. So we were deep in conversation
• 59:05
  there. Fantastic stuff. Thank you, you two.
• 59:07
  But let's give a quick shout out before I forget for what's happening next week.
• 59:10
  We can continue the conversation on common frustrations for MSK clinicians.
• 59:14
  Next week, so again on a Tuesday, it's going to be April the 21st.
• 59:18
  I'm going to be joined by Ben Cormack and Adam Meekins, who some of you will
• 59:22
  know through their collaboration, the Better Clinician Project.
• 59:25
  They work with so many clinicians and they're going to have some wonderful stories
• 59:29
  of frustrations which clinicians face in MSK practice and also providing some
• 59:34
  of the solutions for these common frustrations.
• 59:36
  So it's going to be really nice to have them. And also another reason for having
• 59:39
  them is they're going to be incredibly a therapy show this year.
• 59:42
  So if you are thinking, if you want to read another reason to go to the therapy show,
• 59:46
  the NEC Birmingham in November, then yeah, we're going
• 59:48
  to have amongst a lot of other surprise people who are turning up
• 59:51
  now but we're going to have not just a better collision project but
• 59:54
  there's going to be lots of other people so and obviously as it
• 59:57
  gets closer we'll start on the show but yeah that's next week and
• 1:00:00
  then the week after which will be tuesday i think
• 1:00:03
  21 and 7 28th then that'll be the
• 1:00:06
  wonderful great hugger tristan attenborough will be
• 1:00:09
  on the show to defend his name after all
• 1:00:11
  the attacks we've done so far so that's gonna be wonderful as well and he's
• 1:00:15
  gonna be talking about kind of linkedin to what we've been talking here as a
• 1:00:19
  human being just recognize your weaknesses because if you recognize it's natural
• 1:00:24
  then it's not really a weakness anymore it's just part of being a human so you
• 1:00:26
  can be talking about stuff he's talked about conferences before which is so
• 1:00:29
  powerful about realizing that you it's normal to have cognitive.
• 1:00:33
  Dissonance it's normal to kind of make mistakes to overvalue some things and
• 1:00:37
  to have confirmation bias to miss the point because you're looking somewhere
• 1:00:40
  else and this is all things we need to know to accept ourselves more and not
• 1:00:43
  get beat up about it or avoid it and it's going to make us into much better
• 1:00:47
  practitioners so i'm very excited about that that's going to conclude the month
• 1:00:50
  So, fantastic. Looking forward to that. Carla and Emily, what have you guys
• 1:00:55
  got coming up in the next few months?
• 1:00:57
  Any interesting coming on that? Is this would like to know about?
• 1:01:00
  I'm going to go first. So, I'm doing work with UK Ultimate this year.
• 1:01:06
  So, we are hosting the World Club Championships in Nottingham later this year.
• 1:01:10
  So, I'll be down there. Then I'm traveling away with GB Under-20 team.
• 1:01:14
  And then we've just started the invictus games
• 1:01:17
  process for next year's games so
• 1:01:20
  yeah lots going on with that behind the scenes and then expanding.
• 1:01:24
  Clinic as well looking at other clinic spaces
• 1:01:27
  and things so yeah lots going on lots to keep
• 1:01:30
  me out at all very exciting that's
• 1:01:33
  gonna be great stuff and again i'll just point out if you haven't listened to
• 1:01:35
  the whole month we did on athletes with disabilities then
• 1:01:39
  do check it out it was in march
• 1:01:42
  last year if you go to your favorite podcast at
• 1:01:45
  whatever that is or on youtube then you need to be looking around
• 1:01:48
  231 two three four something
• 1:01:52
  like that those four they're fantastic episodes not allowed
• 1:01:54
  to use well in spine which i totally understand now i get i'm glad rich
• 1:01:57
  told me that it's just great human beings and
• 1:02:00
  there's so much you can learn from them and better yourselves not
• 1:02:03
  just as a clinician but as a human being as well really cool stories from
• 1:02:06
  people from and also therapists with carlo and
• 1:02:09
  penny as well so yeah really good check them out um and
• 1:02:12
  emily what do you got i mean you've already told us you've got
• 1:02:15
  lots and lots of stuff coming out in particular i'm working with
• 1:02:18
  the psychologist looking to develop a touchy
• 1:02:20
  exposure program for people who have experienced domestic violence and sexual
• 1:02:23
  assault that's very cool but i can't really
• 1:02:26
  talk about anything in broader context because there's safety considerations
• 1:02:30
  around that i'm supporting coaching massage therapists that are wanting to develop
• 1:02:35
  their understanding of evidence-based practice soft skills understanding how
• 1:02:38
  to read research and then just generally working with lots of people living
• 1:02:43
  with chronic or persistent pain.
• 1:02:45
  Fantastic. We'll make sure a link goes for that. If you are listening and you're
• 1:02:49
  a massage therapist and you like the sound of that, we'll make sure that suitable links go in.
• 1:02:52
  But you can find Emily Gilbert, the website framework sportsmassage.com.
• 1:02:57
  Yeah.
• 1:02:58
  And then also Emily on Instagram framework sportsmassage, very considerate, easy to remember.
• 1:03:02
  And then Carla Bickerstaff, Instagram, I know you're sports therapy by Carla.
• 1:03:07
  Fantastic. Easy to get. And then is there any other ways I've mentioned?
• 1:03:10
  Do you guys use LinkedIn much? No. Yeah, not yet. No.
• 1:03:16
  I'm just based on Instagram. Just Instagram.
• 1:03:19
  But yeah, but you're the sort of people who now, yeah, if people just put your
• 1:03:22
  names in Google, which is lovely, then you'll come up and all the other stuff
• 1:03:25
  you've been on and different interviews and courses and stuff you're running.
• 1:03:28
  So yeah, use Google, my friends, or Bing or Edge or whatever you want to use. Whatever.
• 1:03:35
  Right then. Thanks, everybody. Thanks to guests. And thank you to live listeners who joined us.
• 1:03:40
  Thank you so much giving us your time i'm just checking now who let's have a
• 1:03:45
  look jessica yannerman says great chat thanks guys and also says let me tell
• 1:03:50
  you this is exciting what did she say let me tell us what i did some coaching
• 1:03:53
  with emily and it was brilliant,
• 1:03:56
  thank you we had a lovely time penny quick say something good about carla you
• 1:04:01
  still there penny come on this is why she paid you nothing yet oh well we'll add it in the notes,
• 1:04:09
  um and jenny oh jenny jenny not penny jenny jenny says i love the chat thank
• 1:04:12
  you very much cool very nice thank you all right thanks guys we will be back
• 1:04:16
  as i say next tuesday with adam meekins and ben cormack until then take care
• 1:04:21
  of yourselves and each other we'll speak to you very soon bye carla bye emily thanks.