What is not measured is not managed.

This is 100% true.

But I’m not actually talking here about your patients assessments but actually your own assessment as a therapist.

It is so important that you frequently review your own practice to identify what you are good at…

And what areas of your practice you need to work on!

I’m sure you want to make a great start to this year and I am going to show you exactly how to do that, by ensuring that any time, effort or invest you make this year on your CPD, is going to count…

And improve your skills as a new grad so much so, that you can provide a great service to your patients on par with, or even better than, much more experienced therapists.

Firstly, you do not need me to tell you that your continued learning is going to be paramount to keep you improving your clinical skills., not only now, but throughout your career.

But are you making the best use of your time and effort with your own CPD?

Most therapists are not.

Most therapists waste so much time on the wrong things.

You read the wrong journals articles, textbooks, blogs…

You listen to podcasts or watch webinars and whilst on the face of it, you think they were great…

You struggle to put what most of what you learnt into practice…

And then in a matter of weeks you’ve forgot it all!

This happens to new grads all the time and is often why most never really commit to any consistent CPD.

So what do you need to focus on?

Answer is…

I do not know!

Every new grads learning requirements are different.

You might need to focus on your special testing…

Another therapist might need to work on their patient handling…

Another on their subjective assessments and screening red flags.

Think of it like this…

The best rehab programme in the world will not fix your patients problem, if you have diagnosed the wrong problem.

The same goes for CPD.

You need to firstly identify your biggest problems (think of it like the diagnosis)…

Then, and only then, will you know what to focus on.

Your CPD plan is like your patients rehab plan…

It is the steps you are going to take to fix up your identified problems.

So how do you determine exactly what to focus on?

It’s easy and I’ll share this with you now.

This task takes just 5 minutes but will tell you exactly what you need to spend your CPD time on.

All you need to do is…

Score yourself /10 for your subjective assessment, objective assessment, treatment skills, rehab skills and career skills.

This is how you feel in these areas right now.

To score these areas use this scale…

0 = Zero confidence in this area
10 = Maximum confidence in this area

If your a little stuck, thing about the last 3 patients you struggled the most with, either on placement or in clinic.

Everyone’s scores will differ but you will get something that looks like this…

Subjective Assessment (4)
Objective Assessment (4)
Treatment Skills (6)
Rehab Skills (6)
Career Skills (3)

I was on a call the other day with a therapist and we went through this together and the scores above were her actual scores.

Before we did this she was telling me she had a problem treating and rehabbing her patients.

But she did not.

She was struggling with her treatment and rehab because she was confused after her patient assessments and unsure if she was treating the right thing.

We discussed a tricky lower back pain patient she had seen a couple of weeks before, that had thrown her sideways.

She could not make sense as to why this patient was not improving with the treatments and rehab she was using.

The treatment and rehab techniques she was using were great…

If she was treating something else!

In short, she thought the patient had a lower back disc problem but her patient actually had a facet joint issue.

Both these issues can produce similar symptoms but her failure to identify the right diagnosis meant she was wasting her time on the wrong injury…

And this was why her patient was not improving!

She had been looking at booking on a few different courses in early 2021 to learn ‘better’ rehab and treatment techniques…

However her main problem was not even her treatment or rehab skills, these were actually pretty good…

But she needed to brush up on her assessment skills.

Score yourself /10 for your subjective assessment, objective assessment, treatment skills, rehab skills and career skills.

What areas do you score the lowest on?

Is this what you thought previously?

Now you know exactly where you need to spend your time on your CPD…

So you can ensure that any effort, time and money you invest in your learning is actually going to help you improve in your day-day practice…

And provide better results for the patients you work with.

Hope this helps

Andy

PS. If you are still a little unsure about where to focus your learning and would like some help just let me know Here

Just fill in the quick form and book a time and we can chat, like I did with the therapist I mentioned in this post, and give you some real clarity about what to focus your time on.

There is nothing worse than starting the year full of enthusiasm and motivation to get better but to fall off the track in just a matter of weeks.

This happens all the time with CPD, because most of the time, new grads are learning the wrong things.

Jump on a CPD call and we can make sure you do not make the same mistake this year.