Hi Guys. Well how could I tell that the placements ended......such a flurry of entries at the last minute.... hopefully people will still find some energy to respond. Sounds like everyone has been busy. I found the discussion interesting on 'what is evidence' and your frustrations about what one should include in your pamphlets and public documents.

There are several levels of evidence. You don't always have to have level 1. Much depends on what you are considering. The area is complex.

This website may be helpful for you to review levels of evidence and to consider what you have been attempting on your self directed pracs.

http://www.cebm.net/levels_of_evidence.asp

Welcome Back Boys!

Well I am thrilled to see such a beehive of activity in the Blogging Room. Some great stuff. Some great responses. Keep the issues broad, complex and engaging so that some useful ideas come about and we can explore our professional reasoning in more depth and get some real value out of this exercise.

For your information.. If you go to www.bloglines.com you can subsribe to the brainstrust BLOG. By subscribing you get automatic notification of any new BLOG entries into the braintrust and any other BLOGS you may want to monitor. When you go to your BLOGlines/myblogs page, you get notification of the new blogs and they pop up in a window for you to read. You don't even have to go to the Braintrust to look at them unless of course you want to make a comment. It is free to sign up and all you need is an email and password.

Once you have an account all you do is go to the 'my feeds' tab on the upper left hand margin and select 'add'. Then you put in the URL of the blog and presto... you get notification when you check your BLOGLINES account.

Let me know if you set it up and find it working......

Also.....any feedback on the blogging experience welcome.

Hello Everyone. Thanks to those of you who have put your first posting up. We are well into this placement and there is very little activity in the Blog? Postings are not being responded to and there still are some original postings needed. Please do not leave this to the last week of the placement. This is designed to engage you in thinking further about your practice, to support you peers and use the collective wisdom of your peers to get some answers to tricky questions. Much better than a final clinical written exam?.... I have entered some comments on how we can increase the value of this experience.

I also asked for some feedback from you all on your thoughts about the Blog. Received one comment. Others appreciated.

Lets hear from you....

Thanks. Rick.

New placement..... Hi everyone. Best of luck on your next placement. Perhaps you could all post a brief summary of where you are at, what the placement area is and perhaps a couple of objectives you hope to achieve. This will provide us all with a sense of where everyone is and what they are going to be doing. I would also like to know more or less what are your thoughts on the BLOG concept. What could improve. What is working. Why do you like it? Good alternative to an exam? Cheers. Rick.

Dear Students. One of the things I have noticed about your contributions which could be enriched is more commentary from your own perspective on what your personal thoughts and actions might be with respect to your professional practice decisions. Whilst it is good to state the issue and your concerns and possibly even the action you have taken, rather than leave it wide open for input, offer some of your own clinical decisions, thoughts, ideas in the Blog. This will give everyone a bit more insight into how you are structuring your thinking, and enable others to look at what is missing, what are great ideas, what could be developed further.

There is also a requirement to contribute at least two reflective statements about your professional practice. The ideas I have brought forward above will increase the reflective nature of your contributions as opposed to what I have been reading which are issues that you have identified. From my review I believe everyone has at least one more reflective contribution to make and I am still waiting on you Ben?.

When we talk about reflective contributions we are talking about....1. Looking at the experiences you have encountered.....2. Reflecting on that experience and trying to identify what you felt, what you learned, what you didn't know, what you didn't understand, what went wrong, what happened.....all these review components......3. Making conclusions about all of this...having gone through the experience and reviewed it comprehensively.....what decisions or outcomes are evident and 4........ How are you going to change your practice or do things differently (or not) the next time you encounter this experience. This kind of disclosure will help your peers to look at your thinking and make even more informed comments. I look forward to your next reflection on your professional practice. Rick.

Hi Everyone. Sorry for the delay in my access but we had some problems with emails and invites getting to me. I have entered a few comments in response to your queries. Whilst there is a minimum requirement don't hold yourself back. The whole point of this exercise is to provide you with an opportunity to expand your thinking, in a non-evaluative manner, with your peers to get some additional ideas to ground your clinical practice. You have made some good comments about things that have been taking place....and some of the responses have been quite good with respect to how to manage the situations. I have not been able to find an original comment from Benjamin so I hope that is coming. Keep up the good work and use this opportunity to talk about further professional practice issues. The only way you are going to improve your professional practice is by talking about it and reflecting on your ideas with others, this way you expand your insights about how to manage things. It does require giving up 'looking good' and fessing up to the fact that we can't all know what to do in every situation. As a physiotherapist, the best jobs I had were ones where I had a close network of peers where I could share all the stuff I was struggling with and didn't understand. I learned more in that environment than any other job.....so use your peers....beyond the minimum. Cheers. Rick.