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I have been a PT for 23 years now (24 in May--argh! So crazy!). When I first started practicing I was in the acute care setting at George Washington University hospital. I saw a lot of really intense things in my time there. After a few years in the hospital setting I moved to outpatient and to be honest it was great but didn't feel stressful in the same way (or so I thought). I opened my practice 15 years ago and started focusing on treating patients with persistent pain about 11 years ago. In that time I started to experience anxiety and panic attacks.
Why am I sharing this? Because the longer I practice the more I realize that what we do as practitioners is challenging to our mental health. I look back on my time in school and my early clinical work and I am proud of what I have accomplished but also know that I really could have used some guidance on how to better handle my stress.
Today the stressors are still there along with our own individual stressors of having loans, living through a pandemic, overwhelm with social media to name a few.
I have had the pleasure of working with Dr. Joe Tatta this past year. He is a clinician and researcher who is passionate about the field of physical therapy. He and I were talking the other day and we are in agreement that something needs to change NOW in the field of PT to help providers be better equipped with treating patients and taking care of our own mental health.
Dr. Tatta recently published an article that looks at how to prevent burnout in the field of physical therapy. Turns out that learning more about mental health (our own as well as our patients') is key to preventing burnout. This is why Joe and his colleague Jeremy will be coming to Seattle in April to teach you how to address this.
This course is great for all clinicians-- recent graduates, students and long standing practitioners such as myself.
The article highlights that novice DPTs are at a higher risk for burnout, work-related stress, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. A group of 35 licensed DPTs completed an 8-week, 20-hour online ACT for pain training course. At the end of the course all measures showed that providers were better equipped to handle the stressors of daily patient care and less likely to experience burnout.
Dr. Tatta has since provided this training in person to DPT students. He is excited to provide this training in person to a mix of PTs with different experiences in Seattle in April. Sign up here to reserve your spot today!
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