The Difference Between Knowing and Applying

Abstract

As the complexity of physical therapy interventions grows and the options for examination and evaluation increase, the knowledge that practitioners must obtain and carry with them threatens to reach unmanageable levels. Therefore, like other members of the health care team, we are highly dependent on our literature and our ability to quickly and in a clinically practical manner extract salient information for the management of our patients. But this challenge—the retrieval of evidence for everyday practice—is only one part of the daunting task we face. In dialogues about evidence-based practice, we often forget that most proponents of this approach believe in something more than the application of data in a vacuum. As Sackett et al1 state, Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. Clinical expertise and patient values are critical to the way we care for our patients and how we relate to them as partners in care. “Clinical expertise” is a difficult term to operationally define. Too often, clinical expertise is viewed as something that gurus and masters of the continuing education lecture circuit have, but in reality they have not yet demonstrated that they can be any more effective than anyone else. Clinical expertise is a property that is held by all physical therapists who practice effectively; though they might not be able to define “clinical expertise,” they can demonstrate it. Among the characteristics of the clinical …