By this time most readers will have heard that the 2013 House of Delegates of the American Physical Therapy Association adopted a bold new vision for the profession of physical therapy: "Transforming society by optimizing movement to improve the human experience." The enlightened and inclusive nature of this statement brought me to thoughts about how it is, specifically, that physical therapists go about improving the human experience, and thereby transforming lives. Well, years of discourse and debate, arising in large part from Helen Hislop's groundbreaking 1975 McMillan Lecture, have brought us (or at least a sizable proportion of us) to agreement that the science of pathokinesiology is the primary domain of physical therapy. Hislop's assertion that physical therapy "... emphasizes the sciences of pathokinesiology and the application of therapeutic exercise for the prevention, evaluation, and treatment of disorders of human motion"1 is an affirmation that physical therapists participate in scientific exploration as a part of the process of intervening with each patient/client with whom we work.
Not long ago I was reminded of the analogies between scientific exploration and physical therapist practice when I was asked to participate in Career Day at my son's middle school. My plan was to talk to the students about careers in physical therapy and what it means to be a physical therapist because, despite almost 20 years as an investigator, I have always thought of myself first and foremost as a physical therapist. Yet, when I was talking with my son about the information that I was planning to present, it took him by surprise, as he had told everyone at school that I was going to talk about a career as a scientist. This exchange got me to thinking about the parallels between being a physical therapist and being a scientist-and I realized that the fundamentals of both these professions are analogous to each other. With each patient/client with whom we work, we engage in the pursuit of knowledge for the purpose of identifying solutions to the movement problems for which the patient/client has sought our expertise.
To illustrate the similarities between what a physical therapist does and what a scientist does, we might consider the definition of the Scientific Method, which, according to Merriam-Webster is the "[p]rinciples and procedures for the systematic pursuit of knowledge involving the recognition and formulation of a problem, the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses."2 Thinking back to our own middle-school science classes, we might remember that there are discrete steps involved in the carrying out of the scientific method, which are as follows: (1) ask a question, (2) do background research, (3) construct a hypothesis, (4) test with an experiment, (5) analyze and interpret results, (6) draw conclusions, and (7) determine whether the hypothesis is true or false. If false, then return to step 3 and reevaluate the hypothesis. Delving further into the similarities between the scientific method and the physical therapist practice, we find that there are analogies at every step of the process. These analogies are described in Table 1.
Despite the striking parallels between the scientific method and the physical therapist practice, there is one important difference. In the scientific method it is incumbent upon the investigator to maintain a detached and dispassionate interest in the outcome of the process, in order to maintain the necessary objectivity. Certainly, part of best physical therapist practice is the use of standardized measures to assess change in body function, activities, and participation, and thereby to maintain objectivity in measurement of outcome. However, it would be very rare to find a physical therapist who is dispassionate about the effects of their interventions on the patient's ability to move and function. Part of what draws people to become physical therapists is the knowledge that we have the skills to make a difference in our patients' lives, to improve their experience of all that it means to be human by improving their ability to move and to interact with the world-and in addition to having the skills, we have a passion for making this happen. So while we look to science for the momentous breakthroughs that give us the advanced technologies that define our modern society, we can feel invigorated as a profession with the awareness that we really do have the ability to transform society, and we do it one life at a time.
Audio Podcast available (see Podcast, Supplemental Digital Content 1, http://links.lww.com/JNPT/A56) for more insights from the authors.
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