Update an IMTA course. Repetition is the key to success

Physiotherapist as a scholar

Since the physiotherapy world adopted the roles described in the CanMEDs Competency Framework, physiotherapists officially have a status as life-long learner, labelled with the term ‘scholar’.

Long before this was defined, it was clear, that physiotherapists seem to belong to a species which never stops looking for new knowledge and skills. Compared to other health care professionals, including medical professionals, physios are the ones who do most postgraduate formation and they just seem to be always on the lookout for another course or even embark on a more complete educational experience by doing a master’s program.

 Skill seekers and evidence hunters

There are various opinions on whether this behaviour is good or bad. Most physios simply tell us that: it is good fun to hear new things, meet colleagues, broaden your horizon and get feedback from your peers and teacher.

What do you think? What is your behaviour? Are you a skill seeker? Are you chasing the latest evidence? Are you following today’s attitude of: New is Cool! Fresh is Swell. Look Ahead & Collect.

“Sorry, I don’t do Pilates”

How many times over the past ten years, physios had patients asking them: “Do you do Pilates?” in such a way, that if they would deny, no positive result could ever be reached in the eyes of the patient, no matter how excellent therapy they would offer.  The answer: “I do Physiotherapy and I will give you tailor-made exercises for your condition…” left patients puzzled and their determination to get some Pilates, drove many colleagues to line up to do a course to then, happily be able to say: “yes, of cause, I do Pilates!” to their patients. This phenomenon was followed by fascia treatment and flossing and will no doubt, be followed by many more.

 Is it old fashioned to “do Maitland”?

First of all, please bear in mind, that Maitland is not called Maitland everywhere in the world! What’s in a name? In fact, many highly manually skilled physiotherapy colleagues, prefer to speak about their ability to do manual-, or musculoskeletal therapy without adding a concept name and their patients (sometimes named clients) can check on a website at which level their therapist was trained and by whom. Depending where you practice and knowing that human beings love branding, if a patient asks: “do you still do Maitland?”, you might as well smile and answer: “yes!” In the meantime, if you feel the urgent need to do your next course, perhaps reflect for a moment and think of how it would be if you would simply do some repetition.

Repetition is the key to success. Update your knowledge and skills

Perhaps you have really been doing an IMTA course in the past, maybe you also did the Level 2A, 2B and even the Level 3, but that was long ago, or you did so many things after that, including building a house, setting up practice and having a family…You are not alone! Colleagues told us their reasons why they would like to do an update course: “I am always doing, what I am always doing, please show me different techniques again”; “I am aware we did this in class, but I don’t know exactly how, any more”; “I don’t dare to apply this technique on my patients, because I feel insecure” and “I would like to continue to do a higher level IMTA course, but I did my Level 1, 20 years ago... “

Ask IMTA for an update course

Have you ever felt the need to revise your knowledge and skills? Welcome on board! There is a worldwide trend, which is called: REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE. If we apply this principle to all our manual skills and knowledge we would be amazed how many things are already there, ready to be used again. With your clinical experience, doing an update course, you’d be surprised, how much easier you now understand Clinical Reasoning and how much better your hands can perform.

So, if you like, give it a try and ask IMTA for an Update Course. To do so, simply fill out the contact form on the IMTA website and express your interest.

At this moment, some update courses are scheduled by IMTA, but we would like to run also courses ‘on demand’, in which case we'll send an IMTA teacher when and where participants need an update.

Please feel free to tell us your needs!

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