The sinking feeling
We all dread the sinking feeling of a dissatisfied patient. It may be a patient who gets off the treatment table and isn’t feeling any better. The patient who does an exercise, and it flares up their symptoms or the patient who blames you for not getting the results they want.
It takes a hit to your confidence, and you start feeling like you’re not good enough.
Patient's are textbooks
Clinical practice and the practitioner-patient therapeutic relationships is extremely complex. The complexity of the interaction is not like a textbook, you can’t read an article, guideline, watch a video or a blog and magically all the doubts you’ve had in yourself goes away - it takes more than that.
Your confidence can affect all aspects of your practice and is commonly experienced the most during the rebooking part of the consultation.
Common reasons that affect confidence
A lack of confidence can manifest for all different reasons.
Some common reasons related to aspects of professional development are:
A lack of clinical experience and time in the profession
Poor clinical supervision or mentorship (at university or in private practice)
The age difference between the patient/s and yourself
Aiming for perfect and not being able to achieve perfection
Your colleagues, other professionals and even patients criticising and judging each other's clinical skills (ie: this making you feel like everyone is judging you)
Seeing your colleagues have a waiting list when you are struggling to be fully booked
Other osteopaths, physios, chiros, doctors have titles, experience and are older (some have even been to 100+ courses...they must be an expert in the field)
It’s challenging to navigate the emotions expressed by the patient and communicating with conviction
There is so much information that it’s confusing to know what is beneficial and what is not
Some common reasons related to aspects of clinical development are:
Our own understanding of how to integrate evidence-based practice to osteopathy / manual therapy is conflicting
Should you be a structural osteo, cranial osteo, exercise osteo, an evidenced based osteo, a hybrid osteo or not even identify yourself as an osteo?
Patients don’t present like a textbook or research paper, they are real human beings with enriched stories, beliefs and expectations
There is alot of uncertainty in the benefit of the interventions we use; are they effective for the patient and their condition/s?
Too many or too little assessments to confirm a clear working diagnosis (specific or the non-specific); the debate of whether we need a diagnosis?
A lack of a treatment and management plan for said diagnosis or non-diagnosis
The patient "we'll see how it goes" rader
With that list, it’s no wonder why your patients know when you are uncertain about, who you are, what you are doing and how to help them.
Sometimes it feels like the patients has a Confidence Rader on them, they really know when you are guessing, (otherwise known as the 'BS' detector). These patients can really take a hit to your confidence level and leaves you saying to the patient
“we’ll see how it goes.”
Revamp your method
You need a system that is fluid and can cater for all patient scenarios, whether simple or complex. With proper clinical guidance and support, you will learn the process of building your confidence level.
We will help discover what is holding you back, how to overcome the doubts, and develop an action plan that works for you. Believing in yourself is a hard thing to do, especially, with all the conflicting information out in the world.
We can help you refine and consolidate your current knowledge, share our experiences, accelerate your practice, and get the best outcome for your patients and yourself. It’s worked for us and many others like you.
The power lies within you
Build your confidence and help your patient gets the outcomes they desire. There is no better feeling than when a patient raves about how good you are and refers their family and friends.
Learn to take control of your clinical practice. Let us help you build a plan for you to become the practitioner you want to be. Discover more about us and share your journey with us.
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