Always In Support

This is my 10th editorial and I can’t remember if I’ve bragged about how fun my job yet? But whether this is repetitive or not, you’re getting a quick version now…

I have a fun job because I love people and I love variety. I meet interesting people who I try to help with their sore bits, I meet interesting people who I try to help promote their expertise and I meet interesting people who I try to help improve their products. One such interesting person, Siobhan O'Donovan , wrote this month’s cover piece and so was on my mind when I finally pulled my finger out to write this. The emails between her and Felicity (MSKMag editor) reminded me just how many puns and turns of phrase she uses in literally every exchange. And because Siobhan’s expertise is in all things boobs, these are often witty innuendos! I repeat… what a fun job with fun people!

Siobhan signs her emails off with ‘Always in Support’, which is a cracking line for a bra fitting advocate who is also passionate about raising standards for the healthcare of women and girls. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the founder of word-play-littered projects like Chews Health, Physio Matters and Chewing it Over would enjoy her style, but today her slogan made me reflect more deeply. 

Support really is a master variable of our community. We support patients to further their function, to participate again in a healthy lifestyle, to self manage their conditions and to better themselves. We support each other to reduce unwarranted variation in line with evidence-informed arguments and appeals to logic. We support educators with feedback, platforms, distribution and custom. We support companies to understand our industry better and help them to see how investing in MSK technology is worthwhile commercially and ethically.

We mustn’t take this for granted or assume that support is an intuitive inevitability. Clinically we know that many don’t offer a helping hand of support, but instead carry a patient through a series of passive interventions that you’d cringe to see in a spa. Others skip over support altogether and place the entire onus of responsibility on patients via lengthy scrolls of corrective exercises without guidance or personalised explanation. In education, we’ve long known that stuffy professors lecturing theory or wannabe faith-healers testing you on their patented mobilisation get us nowhere in the young and evolving field of MSK practice. Aloof elitism grounded in myths and misconceptions are not where we’ll find support. Instead we must collaborate in spaces that reward discussions, debates, reasoning, case studies, thought-experiments, critique, peer-review, reflection and mentorship.

I hope Physio Matters is considered supportive as that’s certainly our mission. I hope that MSKMag is considered supportive of the best and brightest educators in our industry as I am consistently blown away by their standards and generosity of spirit. Speaking of which!

In this month’s issue, the brilliant Rachel Chester explains how expectation and self efficacy must not be underestimated. Fraser Philp explains how domain dependance dulls our vision and can leave us in silos. Dr. Richard Shaffer pitched us a piece a few months back that took more due diligence than usual because he uses radiotherapy for tendinopathy!? - an excellent clinician introducing us thoughtfully to a fascinating subject. Ranter-in-chief Glen O’Humeral is ‘back’ with a pessimistic but irritatingly accurate take on the state of the industry. I share some recent business reflections about when to overcome and when to succumb to inertia when it comes to practice management systems and finally, Siobhan O'Donovan ‘The Booby Physio’ is her glorious self in the wonderfully titled ‘Why we should all be going tits up!’.

I wouldn’t have expected that title (or many of the titles this year) to grace the MSKMag covers when we launched! But I know one thing… I support it.

Jack Chew

Editor In Chief