Clinical skills

Here’s a list of our posts on improving your clinical skills as a Physiotherapist.

We’ve included topics like clinical reasoning, history-taking and assessment tips & tricks.

There’s also some content on MRI findings and other imaging.

If you’ve got any topic requests, shoot us a DM via our Facebook page.

clinical notes app

Clinical notes app – Physio’s new best friend

We're very excited to announce the upcoming release of our new clinical notes app! You can check out a sample at Physio Notes. Seen ...
physio special tests

Physio opinion: “special tests” can be a diagnostic disaster!

Student Physiotherapists learn a broad selection of orthopaedic "special tests" during their university study. These special tests are designed to test a specific structure, ...
mri bone oedema

Focus on MRI – bone oedema

What is bone oedema? Bone oedema, also known as "bone marrow oedema" or a "bone bruise" and spelt as "edema" in US-based publications, is ...
fear as a motivator

Stop using FEAR as a motivator!

Let's talk about motivating patients - more specifically about using FEAR as a motivator. If you need someone to do something for you, they ...
movement patterns

Focus on movement patterns, not muscles [4min read]

Movement patterns are everywhere - it's the way we walk down stairs, the way we open a door and who could forget the famous ...
assessing strength

The best (secret) method of assessing strength despite pain inhibition [4min read]

You're assessing strength to see if it's a factor in causing symptoms, but those symptoms prevent you from reliably assessing strength... It's a tricky ...

Building your clinical skills

There are a few necessary ingredients to building your clinical expertise, and most of those ingredients happen between your ears!

Learning how to spot the clues and recognise the clinical pattern is only part of the challenge.

Clinical expertise comes from bringing all that information together in a way that explains the symptoms and patterns of the condition.

It comes from recognising and accounting for your personal biases (ever noticed how every injury suddenly matches that course you did last weekend?)

Keen to earn a little more or kickstart a mini-business on the side? We’ve got 8 cracking ideas for Physiotherapists to diversify their interests and earn some spare cash in the process (opens in new tab).

Once you’ve covered extensive Physiotherapy professional development and built up a range of clinical skills, you’ll then need to work on developing your own approach.

New Physiotherapists might be Maitland orientated, or take a McKenzie approach, but these approaches don’t suit all problems or clinical reasoning methods.

After 3-5 years of work, you should be developing a unique approach that makes sense to you.

It’s where a clinical mentor can be hugely beneficial, but they need to be in tune with your way of thinking and preferred approach.

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