Good Practice in Australian Physiotherapy Education

In the 2nd year of the course students complete separate subjects in the core physiotherapy areas of musculoskeletal and cardiopulmonary physiotherapy. An example of the cross specialty teaching is in a practical/tutorial class scheduled towards the end of the session; classes in the two areas are combined and facilitated by teaching staff from both areas. Students are presented with two case studies and are then guided in the process of clinical reasoning about these cases. The client problems used in the case studies involve chest wall and thoracic spine pain, and thus reflect the overlap between these two areas of practice. The cardiopulmonary lecturer deliberately facilitates the case study in which the client's problems are primarily musculoskeletal in origin and the musculoskeletal lecturer facilitates reasoning in the case where the problems are primarily cardiopulmonary in origin.
The aim of the strategy is to encourage students to access and integrate knowledge from both clinical areas. The case studies are deliberately chosen to elicit students' assumptions about the different areas of physiotherapy practice. This process of shared facilitation challenges them to recognize how they may have segregated their knowledge and then challenges them to develop strategies that take a more holistic approach to patient care.
 
We feel that introducing this strategy at a 2nd year level influences students' learning as they develop further knowledge in core areas and prepares students for latter subjects that require more advanced integration of knowledge and reasoning, such as Complex case management.