Reaching Forward 2008
Another Successful Alberta Physical Therapy Conference
The 2nd annual Alberta Physical Therapy conference, Reaching Forward 2008: Integrating Practice and Research in Physical Therapy was another top notch event. Students, educators and clinicians gathered October 24 - 26 on the University of Alberta campus. With the expanded program this year, the registrants had the opportunity to hear and to be inspired by three outstanding, internationally-recognized leaders in healthcare. Dr. Andrew Pipe, a cardiologist and sports medicine physician from Ottawa kicked off the conference on Friday evening with a very thought provoking keynote address about the current obesity and inactivity epidemic. Facing the Tsunami provided a comprehensive public health overview of the factors playing a key role in the causes, the challenges and some of the possible solutions for the growing number of obese people, in particular children, in Canada. He encouraged all healthcare providers to take a leadership role in helping to change the pathological and political environment that has lead to this epidemic.
Jackie Schleifer Taylor, a physical therapist who heads up the quality, standards and performance initiatives at the Women's College Hospital in Toronto, opened Saturday with the second keynote address Quality and Leadership: Is collaboration the new competitive edge? In this increasing age of specialization, Jackie presented some bold ideas about risking innovation, challenging scopes of practice and grasping opportunities. Jackie believes the foundation of every healthcare encounter should be providing care of highest quality in a collaborative with interdisciplinary environment.
Dr. Chad Cook, a physical therapist from Duke University in North Carolina continued the quality and leadership theme in the context of integrating research into clinical PT practice. In Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead Chad challenged the PT profession to make evidence, via clinical prediction rules, prognostic factors and appropriate outcome measures for example, an integral part of daily practice. Dr. Cook compared the current approaches to clinical decision making with future approaches such as the ontology technology already being used by some frontline providers in specialized medical areas. Physical therapists must choose to be part of this advancement, must drive this inevitable change - Be a hurdler, not a hurdle!
The graduating MScPT students and several clinicians rounded out the podium and poster presentations on Saturday. The topics were varied, relevant and engaging. It was especially exciting to have out of province clinicians attend and present for the first time. Several sponsors joined the conference registrants for a Wine and Cheese job fair Saturday evening.
As in 2007, Sunday's schedule offered six different practical workshops: Differential Diagnosis and Differential Prognosis (Dr. Chad Cook), Sports Injury Prevention (Dr. Carolyn Emery), PT and the Cancer Survivor (Dr. Margie McNeely & Janice Yurick), Exercising People with Chronic Conditions (Dr. Trish Manns & Dr. Bob Haennel) and PT in Acute Care: What's New? (William Tung & Paula Stoller). Each of these 3 hour workshops allowed an excellent exchange of knowledge and ideas. Feedback was once again overwhelmingly positive - "Worth every loonie" "Something I will use tomorrow with my patients".
Thanks to the three host organizations: Alberta Physiotherapy Association, the College of Physical Therapists of Alberta and the Physical Therapy Department at University of Alberta. Appreciated as well were the 15 major sponsors and Buksa Conference Management for putting on a well organized event.