Considering Our Role In Creating A Safe Environment For Trans Populations In Physiotherapy
Considering Our Role In Creating A Safe Environment For Trans Populations In Physiotherapy
1 hour
Transgender people often encounter unwelcoming environments and have negative experiences in health care. This leads to delays in health care seeking or complete avoidance, which, of course, is not desirable for wellbeing. When they do show up for health care services, transgender people are often in the position of educating others and asking for changes in practice to better serve them.
The purpose of this session is to provide information about transgender people and make suggestions as to how your practice could be welcoming. Patient outcomes depend on strong therapeutic alliance. By making your practice more welcoming, and by you having a better understanding of transgender people, you could enhance health outcomes of transgender patients.
Upon completion of this workshop participants will be able to:
1. Explain to others the importance of creating a safe and welcoming environment to transgender people in the physiotherapy workplace.
2. Critically examine their workplace and make changes to create a welcoming environment
3. Apply this new understanding to their own language and behavior while practicing.
SPEAKERS BIO:
Katherine Harman,B.Sc,M.Sc.,Ph.D.
Katherine is an Associate Professor in the School of Physiotherapy, Dalhousie University. She came to this topic through exploring the therapeutic alliance, pain and vulnerable populations, each of which she has conducted research in and taught about during the 30 years of her career.
Meaghan Peters is a physiotherapist in acute care in Edmonton who has personal experience with the trans community and is passionate about spreading knowledge and understanding of trans people to improve their experiences with the health care system.
Meaghan Peters - bio coming soon
Jenny Setchell Ph.D., PT
Dr Jenny Setchell is an NHMRC Research Fellow in physiotherapy at The University of Queensland, Australia. Her research interests include post-structuralist and critical social science perspectives on healthcare broadly, and physiotherapy specifically. Dr Setchell investigates non-biomedical
aspects of healthcare including stigma and marginalization amongst other psychosocial, cultural and political factors. She also has 20 years of diverse clinical physiotherapy experience in Australia and internationally primarily in the musculoskeletal and sports sub-disciplines. Dr Setchell is co-founder, and co-chair of the international Critical Physiotherapy Network, which is a network of over 600 physiotherapists across 30+ countries working towards a more inclusive and diverse profession, and is Associate Editor of Physiotherapy Canada and the Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation. She co-edited a recently published book called ‘Manipulating Practices: A Critical Physiotherapy Reader’. Dr Setchell has also been an acrobat and a human rights worker.
The instructors
The Pain Science Division is a special interest group of the Canadian Physiotherapy Association that serves physiotherapists who have an interest in better understanding and managing pain and in connecting with likeminded clinicians, educators and researchers. The mission of the Pain Science Division is to: Foster connections and collaborations between clinicians, educators and researchers interested in pain and physiotherapy, facilitate the bidirectional translation of knowledge between pain research and clinical practice and integrate the professional interests of Canadian physiotherapists within national and international pain networks.
The PSD wants to help advance the level of pain education across the country. Pain is a multi-faceted and complex experience that warrants careful consideration and reflection by both entry-level students and experienced clinicians. Our goal is to address this issue from a multi-pronged perspective. In addition to providing clinicians with opportunities for professional development we also want to be in close communication with university-level educators and clinical specialization regulators.
