“It’s not that we can’t disagree, but do we have to kill each other doing it?” Emma Stokes

On Monday 17^th October at 8pm UK time physiotalk’s Naomi and Janet be tweetchating with @ekstokes on digital professionalism, focusing particularly on critical debate and discussion in public online spaces.

Using social media as a healthcare professional has come a long way over the past 5 years. Gone are the days of ‘don’t do it’, and we’re now in a more permissive phase, with thriving online communities and guidance on how to do it professionally and do it well.

As increasing numbers of physiotherapists, students, healthcare professionals and members of the public join our online communities and conversations we need to take shared responsibility in shaping our digital maturity as a profession, and think about the online values and culture we want as a community.

Physiotalk has always taken the position that professional debate in a public space can be healthy – it allows us to discuss a range of areas of practice and service delivery with other professionals as well as patient representatives, ultimately helping us to go back to work and improve what we do.  But, what are the unwritten boundaries? At what point do online discussions share too much criticism? Can airing our professional dirty laundry so openly, and without some of the constraint of face-to-face discussions, harm our reputation and business, or that of others?

Social media guidance gives us some clear do’s and don’ts, but there are also some grey areas according to context, employer, and also personal preferences, expectations and values.  Professional debate, critical evaluation, conflicts of interest, swearing – these are areas where there can more nuance which requires us to think about our aims and values when using social media, as well as successful approaches to influencing behaviour change.

What grey areas do we need to explore more as a profession? Where do we need more guidance? What does professionalism on and offline look like? How do we engage in professional discussion online whilst being the best version of ourselves for patient as well as students?

Pre-chat reading

• Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP): Social media guidance
• Physiotherapy New Zealand: social media e-book
• Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC): Information on social media
• Royal College of General Practitioners: Social media highway code

Questions to think about before the tweetchat:

1. What does professionalism look and feel like in the face-to-face world? Does this differ online? How do our personal values influence our online behaviour?
2. How do our online conversations and discussions influence how we are perceived the public and potential patients?
3. In many countries and clinical areas other professions try to diminish what we do – does professional discourse on twitter help or hinder this? Do we need to be careful about how much we diminish our own profession in a public space?
4. At what point does some online behaviour becomes a cause for regulatory concern?
5. How do we build of culture of discussion and inclusivity, and engage in professional debate without mudslinging?
6. How can we take individual and shared responsibility for shaping our digital maturity and leadership as a profession?

Tweetchat support

• How to tweet chat
• Keeping up with tweet chats: using TweetDeck
• Professionalism and twitter

On Monday 19^th September at 8pm UK time we’ll be tweetchatting about different career pathways for physiotherapists, focusing on non-clinical roles and development.

There’s been some interesting discussion on and offline recently about the different career pathways physiotherapists can take.  Service management, lecturing, quality improvement, commissioning, project and programme management and more – our transferable skills, and new ones, can take us into a range of roles and sectors. And yet our nursing colleagues are often more confident in taking these opportunities.

Pre-chat information

• What else is out there for physios? iCSP discussion

Questions to think about before the chat:

1. What are the transferable skills we develop as physiotherapists that can take us into managerial and strategic roles?
2. What new knowledge and skills can open different doors for us?
3. As a profession do we value non-clinical skills and roles?
4. How important is it that we maintain some clinical time?
5. How can expanding our view of career development help us, our services and our profession?
6. How can these roles help more physiotherapists reach board level roles in healthcare? Why is this important?

Tweetchat support

• How to tweet chat
• Keeping up with tweet chats: using TweetDeck
• Professionalism and twitter

It is World Physical Therapy Day on 8th September – and this year the theme is ‘Adding life to years’. The World Confederation for Physical Therapy has put together a whole toolkit of ideas and activities for physiotherapists to promote the work we do in healthy ageing.

As part of the range of activities for #worldptday Physiotalk have been asked to facilitate a tweetchat on #addlifetoyears supported by IPTOP (International Association of Physical Therapists working with Older People) @IPTOPWCPT 

This will be a tweetchat with a difference as we span the time zones with 3 hour-long chats at a time to suit you! The chat will use the #worldptday hashtag throughout all time zones – remember to use it in all your chat tweets so that everyone can follow the chat. Continue Reading

You may have noticed some tweets over the past week or so on #AHPsActive and the #WeActiveChallenge.  Organised by the WeCommunities, including @WeNurses and @WeAHPs, it’s a month-long social media campaign and competition focused on inspiring the healthcare and police workforce to take part in physical activity over August.

We’re supporting the @WeAHPs team by encouraging members of the Physiotalk community to get involved and support #AHPsActive. Continue Reading