Robin, You’re Just a Physiotherapist
“You’re just a physiotherapist.”
I’ve heard that more times than I’d care to admit over my career. More often from physicians but also from a few clients and even fellow colleagues.
I don’t know why it irks me so much, after all, they are words but the word ‘JUST’ irritated me eleven years ago when I first heard it and it had the same effect on me last week.
Mind you, a decade ago I would have responded with some sort of snarky comment, revealing my immaturity and lack of poise. Fortunately, after being kicked in the teeth (metaphorically of course) a few times, I’ve learned (largely due to self-reflection and education) to control my anger. A quote that has really caged my fury several times is one from Marcus Aurelius in his book Meditations, he wrote “Why should we feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice. Anger is worthless.” I was reminded that ultimately no one cares about my anger, so why show it? It is unproductive.
What turned out to be more productive, was having a pint of craft beer and thinking about what the last 10 years of being a practicing orthopaedic physiotherapist in a private setting have taught me. Oh boy, I had little idea of the number of transferable skill sets I learned throughout my physiotherapy career. These same skillsets, I am confident will serve me well when I do my transition out of physiotherapy and into the next stage of my life (have I told you I’ve started to play pickleball?!)
What are these skill sets you ask?
Hold my beer and I’ll tell you.
It is noteworthy to preface the following paragraphs with a) this is from the angle of being a self-employed private practice physiotherapist b) intended not to brag or boast, but instead written with the goal of inspiring those clinicians who are told that they are nothing more than their actual profession. That they are just INSERT PROFESSION.
Reasons Why Being a Private Practice Physiotherapist is an Enviable Career Choice
You are incentivized to earn your income. Your ability to provide for your family and dependents relies on earning your income. That means ensuring that you meet and exceed your client’s expectations. Your revenue is directly tied to the services you render. If your clients have a poor experience, they are less likely to return, the fewer people and services you render the less you earn. You will not get bailed out for a poor performance with an hourly wage or salary (mind you, most competent employers won’t tolerate your poor performance). The point of that last statement is that you will notice your poor performance as a self-employed person than an employed person because it immediately affects your income. It is a stressful environment to constantly be putting your best foot forward but an environment I strive thrive in. Those clinicians who think the healthcare profession isn’t related to sales are fooling themselves. You sell yourself every. single. day. Just perform your role with integrity (more on this 👇🏽)
You become a master of your time. A few of the perks of working for yourself is that you have the time flexibility of creating your own schedule. In my experience, those who truly succeed, control their time effectively. This does not only mean the interests they pursue outside the clinic but how they utilize their time while in the clinic during the dreaded dead time (late cancelations, no-shows, gaps in your schedule). You learn to utilize that time effectively by completing your clinical notes, conducting follow-up calls, researching, or in my case, working on a few side hustles). Remember my favourite metric, return on time.
You Enhance Your Problem-solving Skills: In private orthopaedics, we are trained to assess our client’s conditions, identify problems, and develop appropriate treatment plans largely without the aid of medical imaging or testing. We require strong analytical skills, which allow us to evaluate complex situations and make evidence-based decisions. These problem-solving skills are often under strain in the midst of a disgruntled client. Sheesh it doesn’t even have to be an irritated client, just someone who is in pain and that is the very essence of most of our encounters, pain. Which flows nicely into our fourth skill.
Empathy and Interpersonal Only Improve with Time: Arguably our real power is in our ability to build rapport. A large component of that therapeutic relationship is my ability to listen, to truly listen, providing the environment for them to be heard. Oftentimes my clients are in search of a professional just to listen because their MD, their spouse, and their kids have failed to do so. Rapport fostering doesn’t end with listening but continues with my ability to exhibit empathy, compassion, and patience, which are essential for building rapport, establishing trust, and providing emotional support.
Communicating Effectively. Listening takes up the lion's share of our interaction but we are compensated based on our ability to synthesize that information, develop a treatment plan and ensure that we course correct effectively (if the situation changes). Now consider in the same day you will have a 3 year old girl with a dislocated shoulder, a refugee who speaks minimal English, and an elderly client with difficulty hearing. This role demands that a therapist is adept at communicating with diverse individuals, including colleagues, and other healthcare professionals. Remember, in this role, you get a lot of practice in meeting strangers, strangers in pain, or have a particular problem, and those strangers are placing their trust in you and your ability to assist them on the rehab journey.
Teamwork and Collaboration: We often work as part of multidisciplinary healthcare teams, collaborating with physicians, nurses, occupational therapists, and other professionals. Which inherently comes with its set of challenges as you navigate amongst egos, hierarchies, and power struggles. Those challenges have to be set aside in our inherent fiduciary responsibility, in providing for the interests of our clients first. To do no harm. If you do end up venturing out to another career after physiotherapy, I can almost guarantee that you will not be working in isolation, you’ll be part of some sort of group or cohort, a team.
You Understand (or should) How Business Works: Considering we operate as an individual business, this would be something I was NOT prepared for when I entered private practice. You do not have an employer who handles your source deductions, contributes to your RRSP, or deducts your taxes for you. Nope, that is all on you, and hopefully, a competent accountant is by your side (a shoutout to Kevin). Don’t forget that you need to allocate (save or invest) accordingly for the taxes you will inevitably owe at the end of the year. Those taxes will depend not only on the income you earn but also on how effectively you track, categorize and reconcile the expenses you incur. The very essence of running a (hopefully) profitable business. Many of you reading this will have dreams/aspirations to open your own clinic one day. I strongly suggest you learn how to run your sole proprietorship well before taking the next step to clinic ownership.
You Get a Window Into the Future of Health/Disease: It is often stated, that if you do not have your health, then you don’t really have anything, especially wealth. As therapists, we have a front row seat to our client’s life decisions, triumphs and failures and the impacts those have on their health. We witness children, adolescents, people in their prime and those in their older years battle various forms of sickness. Some of their ailments are due to genetic factors, while others are a result of mismanagement or complete management of modifiable risk factors. We are reminded of this daily and have a first-hand glance of the importance of managing your own health and a stark reminder of what can happen if you do not.
These were all the skills that I have learned voluntarily or involuntarily over the last decade. I’m likely forgetting a few of them so please comment on what I have missed.
The next time you are told that you are JUST a physiotherapist (healthcare professional), rest assured, you will get no satisfaction from delivering a snarky, immature comment. But you will gain great satisfaction in knowing that your decision to become a physiotherapist or a private care health professional has inadvertently provided you with many of the aforementioned enviable skill sets.
Use the often. Don’t let them rust.
When the U.S. dollar strengthens against other currencies, its effects reach portfolios across the globe. For Canadians, this could mean changes in the value of U.S. stocks within a portfolio, while American investors may see impacts on global purchasing power and the performance of multinational companies.