Quality Face Time (And Our Commitment To You)

In an organization that spans from coast to coast, north to south, it’s simply amazing when we get large groups of us in the same room together to discuss the state of physical therapy and manual therapy. To hash out how best to evolve our approach to meet the needs of PTs today, and ultimately, the patients whose lives they’re committed to improving. NAIOMT had a great turnout for our Northwest Regional meeting located in beautiful Portland Oregon a few weeks ago. We had sessions on strategies for further expansion of OMPT professional development and communication, as well as education and examination excellence. David Deppler facilitated our clinical mentorship training, which covered clinical instruction versus mentoring, resources and practice. We were also able to touch on research and publication development: improving the quality of fellowship projects.

Sunday was a day of innovation: Demonstration and discussion of OMPT practical skills from many eclectic sources.

Our NAIOMT state of the union was given by our CEO, Brett Windsor (pictured above). Although many great topics were covered, one keystone was addressing the vast amounts of information accessible to physical therapists and how this affects their professional decision making. The powerful piece is how we can help improve the connection between information and understanding. I believe Malcolm Gladwell said it best in his book, Blink: “The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.”

Today, instant access to an unimaginable amount of knowledge online can be time consuming and overwhelming. You may wonder how is one supposed to sift through and filter out what is good and what is not? I believe this is where NAIOMT shines; we foster excellence through a combination of mentoring and self-guided study, which helps the professional therapist get to the next level of critical thinking. Our weekend together, with five of our fellowship students taking time out of their busy schedules to join our NAIOMT Faculty, was a great testament to the desire to link knowledge and understanding.

All of the above is why we came together, and why we do what we do. But no NAIOMT gathering is complete without a little healthy competition. The Inaugural NAIOMT mini Olympics featured a vicious battle of darts, pool and shuffle board at the Rock Bottom Brewery, and winners Brett Swigard and Heather Chavin walked away with the title and Rock Bottom SWAG.

I want to give a big thanks to all of the faculty, fellowship students and those folks who work so hard behind the scenes to make these events happen.We are looking forward to hearing about the other two scheduled meetings later in 2016.

Want to learn more about our fellowship program, upcoming manual therapy courses or this eclectic organization in general? Just get in touch!

– Russ Case, PT, OCS, COMT, FAAOMPT