2002 Pauline Cerasoli Lecture: Advancing Contemporary Practice—A Role for Educators

Abstract

INTRODUCTION September 11, 2001, is a day to forever be remembered. That the tragedy of the magnitude of that day and everything that followed could become the powerful force it has by creating such a positive bond among many people around the world is remarkable. I pray that we have learned from 9-11. I, we, pray that we can find more effective methods of communicating our vast differences and our close similarities to one another. The tragic event that changed Pauline Cerasoli's life forever is another reminder of humankind's inability to successfully respect the dignity of another's life. Yet, once again tragedy transformed us. We were able to create something positive out of tragedy by celebrating Polly's life and her legacy. The symbol for this is, of course, the annual Pauline Cerasoli Lecture. Polly's deep dedication to physical therapy and to serving others is a part of that legacy. Another part is the leadership she modeled for us. She challenged the status quo within our profession both in clinical practice and in academia. She helped advance practice by creating and facilitating collaboration between practice and education. Her commitment to bring us, educators and clinicians, together has always made a strong impression on me. And it is with this orientation that I offer the following remarks. THE CHALLENGE Physical therapist clinicians are challenged today to defend physical therapy interventions; to identify the relevance of these interventions in the lives of consumers; to provide evidence that supports intervention decisions; and to demonstrate the costs, the risks, and the benefits of our decisions. Physical therapist educators focus on establishing and delivering curricula that prepare graduates to provide excellent and contemporary services. They also focus on delivering curricula that meet the needs of today's practice and that also anticipate future demands on practice. These are major challenges, and they are occurring in a health care environment undergoing tremendous change. With change come threats. Threats are from but not limited to patients, management, the payer community, providers, policy makers, the vendor community, and the higher education community. We are also sensitive to not a threat but a serious concern that exists within our own professional community, that being how we ensure that all professional students being educated beyond the baccalaureate degree will receive appropriate clinical supervision in their clinical course work. Within this context, we-physical therapist clinicians and educators-are challenged to maintain a meaningful and viable presence. We are challenged to better define who a physical therapist is and what a physical therapist does and to defend how one is educated to become a physical therapist-both didactically and clinically. We are challenged to respond to those disciplines claiming they are more appropriate to provide our services than we. And we are challenged to provide evidence that demonstrates our effectiveness. Despite these serious challenges, I submit that we, physical therapist clinicians and physical therapist educators, have a unique opportunity. I believe we must abandon our laissez-faire approach of interacting with one another and instead forge a close, synergistic partnership. In so doing, we would be able to achieve an effective collaboration that would allow us, through the partnering of our significant resources, to advance the goals of our profession in a more timely, efficient, and effective manner. And we must! We, physical therapist educators, are in the most favorable position for facilitating this partnership. As educators, we have considerable advantages that most clinicians lack. To develop, plan, and implement curricula for the future clinicians and leaders of our profession, we are responsible for teaching the use of contemporary methods. We are also responsible for identifying levels of evidence that support our theories and techniques. …