Dahl-Michelsen T1, Groven KS1
1Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway
Background: Ethics is woven into the historical roots and development of thep rofessions implying that ethics is implicitly entwined with professional competences. The historical roots of physiotherapy disclose that avoiding any association with prostitution was paramount in the process of making physiotherapy a profession. Seeking to avoid the association with prostitution, practitioners embraced a disciplined and dualistic approach to the body ‒ an approach still evident in today's codes of conduct. Although strategies for disciplining the body by emphasising the body as an object enabled physiotherapy to achieve professional status, it had its price. In short, it led to an (unintended) avoidance of the touching and caring dimensions of the body. Read through a critical lens, the history of physiotherapy reveals that in the early days of the physiotherapy profession, the idea of focusing on the body as an object was seen as an ethical necessity. As time went by, physiotherapy also came to emphasise the body as a subject. Indeed, as a more holistic and ethical approach representing new ideals has gained increasing ground, However, the physiotherapy encounter involves close bodily contact between therapist and patient. Accordingly, students representing a new generation of therapists need to learn how to handle bodily encounters in physiotherapy in an holistic and ethical way.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how physiotherapy students learnabout, and handle the bodily encounter of physiotherapy in their skills training
Methods: The empirical data derives from participant observations in skills training classes with students and teachers (165 students and 8 teachers) and in-depth interviews with 16 students who attended the skills training classes. The data is analyzed thematically, using a bottom-up and inductive approach. Our analysis pays attention to how students negotiate the body as object and subject as they handle bodily intimacy and ethics in the physiotherapy encounters within skills training.
Results: The results demonstrate how students handle the bodily encounter of physiotherapy by negotiating the subject and object focus of the body. Bodily closeness, intimacy and sexuality appear as a tacit and implicit transmission of learning of ethics and codes of conducts in their skills training. The results will be presented through the following two themes: Interpreting Intimate Boundaries and Historical Embeddedness of Ethics in physiotherapy.
Conclusion(s): Physiotherapy students' development of professional competences in skills training includes an ethical approach of handling the bodily encounter of physiotherapy. However, as this learning is tacit and implicit, the full potential of ethics remain unexpressed.
Implications: Physiotherapy educations need to address more fully their curricula regarding students learning of ethics, including development of learning out comes.
Keywords: History, ethics, body
Funding acknowledgements: This work is unfunded.
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore how physiotherapy students learnabout, and handle the bodily encounter of physiotherapy in their skills training
Methods: The empirical data derives from participant observations in skills training classes with students and teachers (165 students and 8 teachers) and in-depth interviews with 16 students who attended the skills training classes. The data is analyzed thematically, using a bottom-up and inductive approach. Our analysis pays attention to how students negotiate the body as object and subject as they handle bodily intimacy and ethics in the physiotherapy encounters within skills training.
Results: The results demonstrate how students handle the bodily encounter of physiotherapy by negotiating the subject and object focus of the body. Bodily closeness, intimacy and sexuality appear as a tacit and implicit transmission of learning of ethics and codes of conducts in their skills training. The results will be presented through the following two themes: Interpreting Intimate Boundaries and Historical Embeddedness of Ethics in physiotherapy.
Conclusion(s): Physiotherapy students' development of professional competences in skills training includes an ethical approach of handling the bodily encounter of physiotherapy. However, as this learning is tacit and implicit, the full potential of ethics remain unexpressed.
Implications: Physiotherapy educations need to address more fully their curricula regarding students learning of ethics, including development of learning out comes.
Keywords: History, ethics, body
Funding acknowledgements: This work is unfunded.
Topic: Professional issues; Education
Ethics approval required: No
Institution: Regional comitties for medical and health research
Ethics committee: REC South East
Reason not required: Empirical data from the PhD project Gender in physiotherapy education (Dahl-Michelsen, 2015) forms the basis of this paper. The Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK) has stated that the project does not require approval. The Norwegian Social Sciences Data Services (NSD) authorised the study. All participants signed informed consent letters.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
