A NEW YEAR

19/01/2012

A time to reflect on your professional growth

Reflection is a means of personal and professional growth. It assists us to better understand our strengths and weaknesses, analyse our performance and to identify areas of improvement.

Often in a massage clinic we are looking forward, whether we’re thinking about our very next treatment, or our weekly appointment schedule. However it’s beneficial to pause and take time to look in the rear view mirror, to debrief and reflect, in order to move forward in our optimal capacity as a Massage Therapist.

Reflection leads to greater self-awareness, which can be a big step towards positive change. Ask yourself what patterns have you noticed over the last year? Is there a common link between the conditions that present to you regularly? For example if you live near a sporting field no doubt you will have a higher number of sport related injuries walking through your clinic door. How are you catering for this group? Is there a particular remedial technique that you find is a great tool? Are you able to tape sports injuries and demonstrate this to your clients? Do you sell sports tape in your clinic? How can you further market yourself to this group?

Taking this time to reflect helps you identify approaches that have worked well and in that way reinforces good practice. This also allows you to plan your treatment approach and consciously monitor the outcome to ensure it provides optimal benefit to the individual client and their needs.

The added benefit is that by adopting this learning approach, you will not only ensure that your clients receive optimum quality of care, but also that you as a therapist will continue to grow and develop.

The New Year can also act as a timely reminder to review your clinical documents including your Case History Form and treatment notation. You may wish to ask yourself: How well is this form working? Are you covering all relevant medical conditions that may impact on your massage treatment to reduce risk? Are you documenting your treatment plan so you are able to reassess and adjust your treatment on an ongoing basis? Are your subsequent treatment notes efficient? Are you using both subjective and objective measures to record treatment progress? For more information on this and the use of outcome measures click here.

Enjoy this time to reflect, to think analytically and to continue to develop yourself into a great Massage Therapist!