This might ruffle a few feathers, but I firmly believe that residencies should be required before any physical therapist (PT) is allowed to enter fellowship training. In medicine, a physician must complete residency before entering into fellowship. After finishing, they may choose to go into fellowship or “sub-specialty training.” The residency is the stepping stone. For…
Month: October 2017
Imaging ordering patterns between physicians and advanced practice clinicians
Advanced Practice Clinicians (APC) are civilian mid-level providers (ex. nurse practitioner, physician assistant) who have the ability to order imaging. Though, some proponents have suggested that mid-level providers may be inappropriately ordering unnecessary imaging for their patients. Hypothetically, this could lead to increased healthcare cost and spending. Hughes, Jiang, & Duszak (2015) used Medicare claims…
Manual therapy: how many techniques do you really need?
There are so many advertisements from various companies that offer courses for manual therapy. Whether it’s joint manipulation, soft tissue mobilization (STM), instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization (IASTM), or dry needling (DN), the companies will promote how these skills will improve your results in the clinic. While that may be true, there are a couple…
Do we need to stick everyone?
Dry needling (DN) is a manual therapy technique that is increasingly being incorporated by a variety of medical practitioners. Physical therapists, chiropractors, and physicians utilize this intervention for a variety of reasons. It has been suggested that DN produces local and central nervous system (CNS) responses that result in the reduction of both peripheral and…