PROMOTING VIETNAM PHYSICAL THERAPY ASSOCIATION THROUGH THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE

T.-V. Le^1,2, N.-N. Vo^1,3, N.-M. Nguyen^1,2

¹Vietnam Physical Therapy Association, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, ²University of Medicine and Pharmacy at Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, ³Hong Bang International University, Physiotherapy - Rehabilitation, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

Background: Physiotherapy in Vietnam started in 1972 with around 2,500 physiotherapists trained to date. Vietnam Physical Therapy Association (VNPTA) was established in 2019. In 2021, it become a member organization of World Physiotherapy (WP). VNPTA aims to be the largest professional organization of the physiotherapists in Vietnam. Although VNPTA has been growth well since established, it is necessary to work more to develop the association.

Purpose: The objective of the 1^st Physiotherapy scientific conference in Vietnam was to promote clinical research and evidence based practices in order to (1) raise awareness about contemporary Physiotherapy and, (2) Add value to membership of VNPTA.

Methods: A national physiotherapy conference was held in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam in August 2022 with the theme “The diverse roles of Physiotherapy in modern healthcare”. World Physiotherapy executives, International physiotherapy experts from Belgium, Australia, Taiwan were invited to give keynote presentations in different areas and 09 Vietnamese physiotherapists presented their studies. To make the conference more accessible to everyone, we arranged hybrid format and simultaneous interpretation. Besides, 03 pre-conference webinars with support from the experts from Belgium were also organized free of charge for the participants. There were benefits for the members of VNPTA who attend the conference. We created a Facebook fan page to promote the activities of the conference.

Results: There were 360 on-site and 100 on-line participants attending the conference. The attendance of the representative of Ministry of Health showed support to the development of physiotherapy and VNPTA. The news of the conference was on different newspapers and televisions the day after. More importantly, VNPTA recruited 200 members more thank to the conference.

Conclusions: The national conference showed its effectiveness in promoting the association as well as the profession.

Implications: A scientific conference with different activities could be a good suggestion for the new associations to recruit more members and raise awareness

Funding acknowledgements: Unfunded

Keywords:
physiotherapy promotion

Topics:
Professional issues: business skills, leadership, advocacy & change management

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: This is a new development in management the association