A surfeit of learning

It’s been a busy few weeks as I’ve been at the San Diego Pain Summit and then the New Zealand Pain Society meeting where wonderful speakers presented on topics like exercise for pain, cognitive functional therapy, central sensitisation, opioid use in New Zealand, sensory profiles and other such topics. The chance to meet and spend time with clinicians who are passionate to not only learn about pain, but apply what they’ve learned in clinical practice is something I can’t miss. What’s difficult, though, is deciding what to apply on Monday morning after having been to meetings or events where there’s so much new material to absorb. And that’s one of the problems, I think, in our clinical practice today. The years when it was relatively easy to do the same old, same old, have (thankfully!) gone – but in its place is the challenge of sifting through that new information and deciding what and how to do it. So today I thought I’d go through some of the practices I’ve used – maybe it will help someone else? Firstly, I try to take just one thing away from a meeting. If I absorb more than this, it’s fine, but one new thing is usually quite enough for me! Someone made the point that changing habits is hard – and, just for a moment, think about what we expect the people we treat to do, and then think about that last conference and what you intended to do, but just didn’t… Without  intention, plann...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - Category: Anesthesiology Authors: Tags: Clinical reasoning Coping strategies Science in practice biopsychosocial healthcare Research Source Type: blogs