Frank Long, Editorial Director, Rehab Management
Editor’s Message from the November/December 2014 print and digital edition of Rehab Management.
What’s great about November is that we can talk about October now that it’s out of the room. And what would be the point of good gossip if not to share a few whispers about that month’s hot topic relative to physical therapy: Halloween.
Oh, wait a minute. Aren’t we missing something? Wasn’t October National Physical Therapy Month? Ah, so it was. But if you didn’t know October was set aside for this observance, you likewise probably missed the intended objective of National Physical Therapy Month. That objective, as stated by the APTA, was to recognize that physical therapists and physical therapist assistants help transform society by restoring and improving motion in people’s lives.
If you, a therapist who spends each work day at the epicenter of physical therapy practice, missed this message, there is a good possibility your entire community missed it. Hence, the APTA’s message likely went unnoticed among the very population from which the next crop of physical therapy clients is supposed to come.
The APTA does a lot of things well, but getting out the message behind National Physical Therapy Month is not one of them. If you are like me, your awareness of other October happenings may have strongly overshadowed your awareness of National Physical Therapy Month. Halloween, for example, is an event about which I have a particularly high awareness—mostly because it is the only day of the year when it is socially acceptable for children to accept candy from strangers.
Coming in behind Halloween is the World Series. I couldn’t tell you what teams played, but like most folks, I knew several really big baseball games would be contested before the end of the month—with luck, before first snowfall.
Third among social phenomena at the top of my mind during October is Oktoberfest: a jolly invitation to overindulge in polka, sausage, and beer. Lederhosen for men, long braids for women, fierce accordion music for all. Oktoberfest doesn’t do much to transform society by restoring and improving motion, but it does seem to transform people’s moods—usually for the better.
In comparison to the hype and din of Oktoberfest, Halloween, and the World Series, the message of National Physical Therapy Month went practically unheard. This offers a teachable moment that begs one of two actions. The first is to move National Physical Therapy Month to a month that offers less competition from candy, baseball, and beer. The second is for the APTA to use a more assertive voice in delivering its message, regardless of the calendar. During the entire month of October, I did not see one billboard or hear one public service announcement (PSA) about why a person should seek physical therapy. Whatever voice the APTA spoke with, it wasn’t even loud enough to be heard on the cheapo 3 am airwaves where most charity appeals and unfunded PSAs lurk.
If members of the PT community did not catch the message of National Physical Therapy Month, it is reasonable to assume that precious few outside healthcare received that message. It is a message that deserves to be heard, especially considering the sweat equity the APTA put into securing the success of direct access laws. But isn’t the success of those efforts muted if healthcare consumers who could become PT clients don’t know what physical therapy really is, or how it can help them? I don’t know what portion of APTA membership dues is allocated for campaigns to promote the profession to the public, but maybe it’s time for the association to think less about using its resources to reinvent some of its conferences and instead reinvent the way the nation thinks about physical therapy. After all, earning the right for patients to have direct access did not come cheaply. Let’s hope those involved make it worth the price that was paid.
— Frank Long, Editorial Director, Rehab Management
