Prepare for autumn by deepening your knowledge about something

Sometimes… Actually quite frequently, I feel like I’m missing something at university. I’ve passed all exams (#humblebrag) but there is a piece of the puzzle that is missing. The thing is, as good as the basic education is it doesn’t provide a systematic enough approach to examination and theory in my opinion. At least not a solid enough system.

One of the teachers said early that this education is like a drivers license; when we get it we’re ready to start learning by ourselves to a greater extent. That is a good argument for leaving a lot of stones unturned during an education. But it doesn’t satisfy me. I want to learn examination and treatment according to a more systematic approach which is why I’m going to take the course OMT Step 1 this autumn to deepen my knowledge base.

Returning to something I mentioned before: I often feel like a piece of the puzzle is missing. It’s that I know enough to pass the exams but not enough to generalize a lot of the knowledge. It’s like I’m only scratching the surface of the iceberg. Shouldn’t I get at least a little bit more? Maybe it’s not possible to do during a 3 year education… Or maybe we’re all making it a bit too easy on ourselves.

Call me nerdy, but to me this education is not just a road to a job. I also learn because I want to learn and I’m curious about different concepts and therapies within the field. Of course, not all these interesting concepts and therapies can be explored in only 3 years. But there are main skills and knowledge that probably all physiotherapists should know, and knowledge about those should be deep. I’ll delve deeper into what I think are main skills another time, probably, maybe, possibly.

Anyway, when I revisit course literature I often find details that are very important but that I didn’t understand, often because many things can be learned by rote to pass exams. For example, you may know how to test for and treat mobility impairment in the knee but do you remember the convex/concave rule that explains why certain movements should be performed? If you don’t you can’t apply that knowledge to other joints and if you forget which way to move the leg during the exam you can’t deduce your way to an answer.

The convex/concave rule is relatively simple and easy to use as an example but there are more subtle concepts that I can’t put to words right now. And why can’t I do that? Because while I know what to do in many situations, I lack knowledge about the reasons. Hopefully OMT Step 1 this autumn will help me reach some more depth as opposed to only broaden my base knowledge.

If you read my last post (which you almost definitely didn’t) there I said that I had chosen three books to read during the summer to prepare for next semester. The first is directly related to OMT and examination of the extremities and spine: Clinical Neurodynamics. It was recommended to me by the teacher of the course I’ll take who came to KI for a crash course in neurodynamics. It has about 240 pages and I’ve calculated that I will have to put about 20 hours into reading it (and I will of course read it again come autumn).

You don’t have to deepen your knowledge in OMT, I’m giving you permission to choose something else (I’m so nice). But my opinion is that you really should find something to explore further than we did in school. Because base course level knowledge is rarely enough.

/Noa Greén