My 2018 Professional Year in Review

‘Tis the season once again – it flies by faster every year. I’ve been a PT for over 8 years now and I feel like I’ve gained something different each year. This is another year that I’m fortunate to say that. This is yet another way for me to look back and reflect on what the year was like and what I learned over the course of the last 12 months.

One of my main goals this year was to narrow my professional focus, the last two years I said "YES" to quite a few different things as I eagerly volunteered with the goal of "professionally exploring" a little bit. After seeing what those things were like, I decided to really narrow down this year. I resigned from the two committees I was on for our state association and I’m no longer reviewing for a journal. Basically, I worked on saying "NO" to things that didn't really align with my top goals and priorities.

I always have goals of reading more frequently and my book list grows faster than I can read, but I did manage to get through a few. I ended up reading Emotional Intelligence 2.0, The Obstacle is the Way, and 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. These books were a little different but were good for me without a doubt. I’ve really enjoyed the two books I’ve read by Ryan Holiday. I'd really like to see if I can read one book per month for 2019.

I’ve always had a strong desire to learn things, so naturally, I’m a big continuing education guy. Some might say I’m addicted a little bit (I just counted – 31 courses in a little over 8 years……). I ended up doing 6 courses this year, and I didn’t even realize it was that much until I sat down to write this. I took a great lumbopelvic course through Evidence in Motion, and if you haven’t ever heard Jeff Moore give a course, you need to add that to your list. The guy is a phenomenal presenter and obviously knows his stuff. He can connect with any crowd of people and is definitely not a “stuffy” presenter. He has some cool courses through the Institute for Clinical Excellence that I’d like to look into in the future. I attended the Sanford Sports Medicine Symposium which is always a nice way to get a little information on a whole bunch of topics. We had a soft tissue course as well, which I took a couple things from. I went down to Creighton to hear a couple guys I know (Dan Lorenz and Terry Grindstaff) talk about some ACL research, which was really nice timing as we are in the process of updating our ACL protocol right now. The big one was dry needling this year, which I did through KinetacCore. I’ll be interested to see how this can impact my patients going forward. My original thought is that it will be another nice “adjunct” treatment, but not something that will be the main focus of my sessions. To round out the year, we also did a quick afternoon session on recovery strategies, which was some different information on breathing techniques, sleeping habits and hygiene, and a more wholistic approach to recovering and adapting after we put our bodies through stress. On a non-clinical practice continuing education note, I’m doing a monthly leadership course through my employer, so I’m learning quite a bit there along with gaining some valuable perspective. It's been a welcomed change of pace from the normal fast-paced-clinic-PT environment.

Again in 2018, I worked about one weekend every month on the rehab unit in the hospital. I always walk away from those weekends with some new perspective. I feel like I’ve been doing that long enough for the perspective to stay with me without working there as frequently. There are definitely patients that have a new found appreciation for life, given their injuries they’ve sustained. If only I could bottle up that perspective and give it to some of my high school and college aged patients……

As I mentioned last year, I wanted to do some more speaking engagements this year. I got that accomplished as I spoke a couple different times throughout the year with some good responses. I spoke at the Sanford Sports Medicine Symposium on patient engagement and attempted to tie that in with multidirectional instability. That talk was more popular than I thought it would be and since I’ve become more passionate about patient engagement and the effect that our “soft skills” have on our patients. Keeping with that theme, I also spoke at a regional NASCM conference at South Dakota State in the fall. I co-presented with Zach Mathers, the head ATC and strength coach at the University of Sioux Falls. I’ve known of Zach for a long time but hadn’t formally met him prior to that day. We presented to a group of about 30-40 students and professionals about how teamwork plays such a huge role in the treatment of the athlete at any level. We had some great discussion driven by the attendees and that might be one of my favorite talks to date.

As far as social media goes, I’ve tried to scroll through a little more of Instagram, as there are a lot of really good professionals there producing some great, easy to use content. I continue to use Twitter most frequently, along with perusing Facebook here and there. I started doing some journaling, but haven’t gotten real consistent with that. I don’t mind it at all, and I can see the benefit of taking some time to be alone with your thoughts. My favorite thing on my iPhone now is the Screen Time section, I'm thinking I'll spend a lot of 2019 trying to get that number down to about an hour a day or so.

In looking forward to the 2019, I think I’ll continue to work on narrowing focus. I’m planning on working rehab a little less and doing less continuing education courses, with the hopes that I’ll have more free time to get through more of those books I keep adding to my list, along with a little more personal and family time.

It’s kind of exhausting tracking what went on over the course of the year, but it’s all good things. I’m learning as much as I can all the time and I plan on continuing to do that. The kids keep growing up and the days keep going by a little faster………..cheers to another year.

Brett