By Sarah Ellison, PT, DPT
Earlier this Fall, my coworkers and I were fortunate enough to participate in PelviCon (yes, you read that correctly!). This conference gathers over 600 pelvic health specialists from around the country and world to learn new perspectives and research around pelvic health care. Over the weekend, the hosts often asked participants, “What is your spark? What is going to change the way you think about your practice?”
We all took away so much knowledge from this weekend, reaffirming the care that we already provide and highlighting innovative ways to enhance our clinical practice moving forward.
I’d like to share some additional thoughts that stood out to me, both as a healthcare provider and as an individual looking for characteristic traits in my own providers when navigating the healthcare system.
Science is always evolving
It’s funny how we are oftentimes under the impression that math and science are so concrete and finite. If I learned something in my training, I took it to be a fact that had already been proven and would not need to be changed. While I knew that best practice evolves over time, I did not realize how often new practices directly refute prior recommendations. Even more interesting to me was how the researchers that spoke at the conference discussed coming across these new recommendations and integrating them into practice: with humility, consideration, and curiosity. To me this was reflective of an adaptable practitioner, not stubbornly set in their ways but open to changes when new and improved research is available.
Collaboration is key
As I had expected, many of the PelviCon lectures reviewed common pelvic floor therapy strategies to address pelvic floor conditions, including breathwork, exercise progression, and pelvic floor muscle release and re-training. Interestingly, several presentations also focused on another role pelvic floor therapists have in their patients’ care that can be overlooked: the development of a care team. Some commonly included medical providers include gynecologists, urologists, interventional radiologists, surgeons, endocrinologists, and gastroenterologists to mention only a few. Having collaboration between and referrals to the right providers can be the difference in creating efficient and meaningful care.
It takes a village
It was inspiring to be around so many clinicians that were passionate about the care that they provided and eager to be even better clinicians. Enthusiastic sharing of ideas was infectious! I left the conference knowing that the field of pelvic health is in good hands and will only continue to grow, helping so many people along the way!
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