The new year is officially here, which means we have begun the countdown to APTA-CSM 2025!
🎙️ “Watch Your Mouth: Improving Therapeutic Alliance Through Effective Communication” is not just another talk about communication—this session dives deep into the how of connecting with your patients on a meaningful level.
We’re talking about building trust, navigating those tough conversations we all face, and creating a space where patients feel truly heard and supported.
And here’s the kicker: improving your communication skills doesn’t just make your patients happier—it directly impacts their functional outcomes.
If you’re ready to elevate your practice and transform the way you connect with your patients, this session is for you.
In today’s episode, I sit down with speakers Dr. Rebekah Griffith, Dr. Jimmy McKay, & Dr. Adam Matichak to uncover their top tips, surprising insights, and a sneak peek of what you’ll learn. Trust me, you won’t want to miss this one!
Mark your calendar for Watch Your Mouth: Improving Therapeutic Alliance Through Effective Communication
Join Drs. McKay, Matichak, & Griffith for their session, Watch Your Mouth: Improving Therapeutic Alliance Through Effective Communication, on Saturday, February 15, 2025 from 8-10am.
This session will be available on-demand.
Click here for more information on this amazing session.
Want to watch the episode instead?
About Dr. Jimmy McKay
Jimmy is a Science Communicator.He has a degree in Physical Therapy from Marymount University and a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from St. Bonaventure University.Jimmy was a rock radio DJ for 15 years, most recently as Program Director & Afternoon Drive host for 97.9X (WBSX-FM). He has worked with amazing organizations to communicate their science such as Fox Rehabilitation, Mount Sinai Hospital, APTA Orthopaedics, and APTA Colorado. He has presented at State and National Conferences. Was appointed as a trustee for the Foundation for Physical Therapy research and was the captain of the victorious team in the Oxford Debate at the 2019 NEXT Conference.
Follow Dr. Jimmy McKay on Instagram and listen to PT Pintcast.
About Dr. Adam Matichak
Adam Matichak is an acute care physical therapist at Stanford Healthcare in Palo Alto, CA working with Hematology/Oncology, Bone Marrow Transplant, and Immunotherapy/CAR-T Therapy patients. He is a Board-Certified Clinical Specialist in Oncologic Physical Therapy dedicated to providing the highest level of care to individuals navigating the challenges of cancer treatment. His passion for patient care, coupled with his dedication to education and advocacy, makes him a respected figure in the cancer rehab community.
Catch up with Dr. Adam Matichak on The Cancer Rehab Community or follow him on Instagram.
About Dr. Rebekah Griffith
Dr. Rebekah Griffith is a physical therapist who specializes in care in the Emergency Department and ICU settings. She believes that physical therapy should not be a luxury and should be accessible to everyone, particularly in life’s most critical moments. Dr. Griffith is the founder of the ED DPT, a business focused on making Emergency Physical Therapist practice well-known and well-practiced. She is the author of Top of Scope-The Emergency Department Physical Therapist Handbook. She also serves her profession as APTA Colorado President. She firmly believes that we rise by lifting others, which is at the core of being a physical therapist and human.
Follow Dr. Rebekah Griffith on Instagram and listen to Top of Scope Podcast.
Transcript
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:21)
Hey Onco PT and welcome back to this episode of the Onco PT podcast. We are kicking off our APTA CSM preview episodes here on the Onco PT podcast. And I’m so excited to have this very dynamic panel joining me today. So I’m just gonna go around the screen as I see it right now. First up we’ve got Dr. Jimmy McKay of PT Pintcast.
Jimmy Jam (00:41)
Good morning, good afternoon, and good night depending on where you are.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:44)
I love it. And then next is Dr. Adam Matichak.
Adam (00:49)
Good morning, early morning out here on the West Coast.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:52)
You’re a real trooper, Adam. I really appreciate you showing up so early. And then Dr. Rebekah Griffith.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (01:00)
Good morning. think nothing says time is a construct like the fact that we’re all in different time zones, but we’re
Jimmy Jam (01:06)
everyone.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (01:06)
I
love it. Now, each of these amazing speakers have been on the Onco PT podcast previously, but we have them all here together because they are presenting a very cool and innovative session at this upcoming CSM in Houston 2025, which is called Watch Your Mouth, Improving Therapeutic Alliance Through Effective Communication. Now, first of all, what was the inspiration behind this topic?
Adam (01:36)
So I think because of COVID and a lot of schools going to virtual and like just my being a CI and taking students through COVID and put like this whatever weird post kind of COVID era that we’re in now, I noticed that students had a really hard time interacting with patients one-on-one. And so that was kind of the impetus for this is just like, how do we make students better communicators with
their patients, with each other, with the rest of the interdisciplinary team. So I just put out this call on Twitter, like, hey, I have this idea and I got a ton of responses. And luckily these two other wonderful people here decided to collaborate with me on this project. So I would love to hear why they decided to join me in this endeavor.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (02:27)
Yeah.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (02:29)
Well, I think for me it’s because working in the emergency department, words matter. And establishing therapeutic alliance has to happen instantaneously, right? Like don’t have three to six sessions to get somebody to like me. I need them to trust me right now. And if they don’t, we’re not really going to make it very far.
And words just really matter and how you approach patients matters. And words aren’t the only piece of that. So we’re talking about watch your mouth, but really it’s not just that. It’s about communication as a whole.
Jimmy Jam (03:01)
Yeah, I mean, my previous background was communications, journalism, marketing before becoming a PT. like, yes to all of these ideas, right? And what hurts me the most is when you have a very smart person, but that message is being either lost in translation or it’s being assumed that it was received. You spent all this time, effort, money, energy, gaining this information that could help the person in front of you. But the distance, the figurative distance between you.
is the place where it gets lost. And that’s where it sort of hurt me and said like, wow, what if we could improve this? So I usually give health care professionals a little grace by saying, well, maybe there’s room for improvement, right? You’re not bad at this. There’s just room for improvement because you were never really taught this. But then I give them a little bit of tough love where I say, it’s on you to find a way to improve this. You can’t just say, well, I wasn’t taught.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (03:57)
Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Jam (03:58)
So I’ll give you grace in saying you weren’t taught. But now I need to say you need to own that and improve this. And you need to be proactive in that because it might not have been in syllabus, but it sure is in the job description.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (04:11)
100%. And I really love that y’all are already talking about too, not just the sending of the message, but also the receiving and the interpretation of the message. I mean, that’s the other half of communication. I think we, maybe as healthcare professionals, maybe as PTs, we think we do a good job of sending the message. And maybe we do, maybe we don’t, right? Like Jimmy said, maybe we don’t.
But that other half, I think, is a lot of times what gets missed so much or just straight up botched altogether. So when you think of effective communication to improve the therapeutic alliance, what does that kind of feel like or look like in your own practice or interactions with patients and clients?
Adam (04:57)
Yeah, I think the big thing is really meeting patients where they’re at. I know, Elise, you and I have talked about this a lot and just had a great presentation at your conference on trauma-informed care and kind of, you know, bringing our humanity to the profession. so, right, like my background as an acute care oncology specialist, know, Rebekah’s experience in the ED, right, like.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (05:08)
Yeah.
Adam (05:22)
we’re dealing with people that are going through traumatic experiences, you know, through very stressful experiences. And we need to be able to like not speak to them as this medical professional, but get to their level as a person and be able to kind of make our words stick with them. I think one of my favorite things that Jimmy says is he kind of calls BS on the, like, nobody cares how much you know, unless they know how much you care. but
it’s up to us to kind of demonstrate that and prove that to the patient that’s in front of us. It’s not that I care about you because I’m here to help you. It’s I care about you because I’m a person, you’re a person, let’s make this work.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (05:53)
Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Jam (06:08)
Yeah, there’s a…
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (06:08)
I think…
go ahead.
Jimmy Jam (06:11)
There’s a there was a great quote from Sir Mark Walport. He was like the the British version of like the Attorney General, whatever they have over there. And he said science isn’t finished until it’s communicated. And somebody like me who’s like in health care and communications, I like love that. And I walked around, I put it on my LinkedIn banner. And I was like, this is the thing I was gonna get tattooed my forearm like this is my rally cry, right, at least two things. And then about a month in, I remember I was sitting there reviewing it and saying,
science isn’t finished until it’s communicated. I’m like, actually, I’m gonna one up Sir Mark Walport, because I don’t think that’s complete. I think science isn’t finished until it’s understood. Right? And it sounds like I’m just getting cute with words. And maybe I am, but maybe I’m not. So here’s what I mean. Here’s why I wanted to one up Sir Mark. The idea was, if you stop at what he said, which is science isn’t finished until it’s communicated, I can walk into a room with a patient
Elise – @TheOncoPT (06:59)
Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Jam (07:09)
say a bunch of stuff, I’ve communicated, and I’m done. I don’t think that that’s actually the case. think if you move the goalpost a little bit in a good direction is my job is to stay there or to try different ways to get that message to go in, in your brain so you understand it. So science isn’t finished until it’s understood. Let me give you like a cheeky example too. I’ve never been a third grade teacher, but I could be the most efficient third grade teacher ever. I’d be done in three weeks, man.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (07:28)
Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Jam (07:38)
I could rip through that syllabus in like three weeks. I go 100 miles an hour, right? I’d have a room full of third graders looking at me like I have no idea what you just did for the last three weeks, but I’m eight months shy, right? I did it. I’ve communicated the syllabus. I flung it at you at 100 miles an hour. I’ve got a bunch of eight-year-olds staring at me like they have no idea, because that’s not the actual job. The job isn’t to just communicate. It’s to look at each one of those kids, I’m assuming, right? I’m not a teacher, but my guess is,
Some of these kids are gonna get some stuff faster, some a little bit slower, you know, and then it’s gonna switch. These kids are gonna get it faster and slower. My job is to read, recognize, and change how I’m communicating or teaching it, because my job is to make sure they at least understand what I’m saying. And then I actually give healthcare providers a little bit of grace. Your job isn’t to get anybody to do anything, and people like, PTs especially, are like aghast. No, my job is to get them to do it. And this is where I quote,
Elise – @TheOncoPT (08:24)
Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Jam (08:36)
I’m going from Sir Mark Walport to my favorite Peloton instructor, Dennis Morton. I make suggestions, you make decisions. Now, I have to be clear, my job is to make sure you’re understood, but from then on out, it’s on you. And I’m not saying just like, you know, drop knowledge and leave and be, you know, but the goal is to get you to understand, to hopefully spur change from within here, like this internal motivation, right? I can yell and be fun and do all those things, but if I move the goal post,
Elise – @TheOncoPT (08:55)
Right.
Jimmy Jam (09:06)
a little bit easier, say, job is to actually get you to understand, right? Do you understand that if you want this and you’re here, to get from here to there, you do this? Do you agree? Yes, I agree. OK, let’s talk about steps. But the goal is to get you to understand, and then I make suggestions, but ultimately, you make decisions. And to me, that’s communication, right?
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (09:30)
when I’m going to go from your communication to the therapeutic alliance part, right? Like, so if I walk into a room to talk to you, right, I can communicate well, but it’s like, do you want to form an alliance with me? Like that meme, we’ve all seen it, right? That real, do you want to form an alliance with me? Like, why should you? Why would you? But in order for us to be successful in this therapeutic relationship, we need to do that, right? So I hear PTs say, well, I just match their energy. I’m like,
Elise – @TheOncoPT (09:44)
Yeah.
Jimmy Jam (09:47)
Yeah.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (09:59)
Okay, that’s like one approach, right? But if you come into the room and the energy is here and that patient’s panicking or they’re scared or they’re nervous or they’re angry, like we’re not … We don’t need to match that energy, right? I need to display the energy that makes them feel safe and makes them feel like I’m a partner to be allied with. So what am I bringing into that room?
that offers a benefit to that patient so they actually do want to have that therapeutic alliance with me. So sometimes the first part of that effective communication, right, is that you are somebody who’s able to be trusted and that you’re going to not ask for anything from that patient or do anything to that patient until you have that alliance, right? And I think a lot of times we go into rooms asking for things, demanding things, wanting things, having expectations, and that’s not an alliance.
That’s not an alliance at all. We have to walk into the room ready to receive a history, ready to create an alliance, ready to actually communicate with that person. But if I’m also not communicating what I have to offer and why it should be me, then there will not be an alliance no matter how effective my communication is.
Jimmy Jam (11:14)
Yeah. the thing is, again, I give health care providers grace. There are principles, just like there are anatomy and physiology and exercise principles. There are principles in communication. What Rebekah is talking about there could be highlighted in what we call the arc triangle. So that’s affinity, reality, and communication. You have to have those three things. I’ll go through them real fast. I promise I’m not trying to dominate the conversation. Affinity, what Rebekah was talking about.
Do you think you have the ability to like me? I mean, we’ve run into people, as soon as the person walks in the room, you’re just like, this ain’t happening, right? OK, maybe time for a different provider, right? So affinity, like, do you have the ability to like me or to have affinity towards me? Reality, are we on the same page? Right? And what I mean by there is, like, you can’t be expecting the impossible. Because if we are worlds apart,
we cannot make a plan together. If you’re saying I want to be able to have a 60 inch vertical and you’re like, but you haven’t been able to walk for three weeks. It’s like, okay, like yes, but maybe in a longer timeframe. So that’s reality. Are we in the same plane of existence here? And then communication, the ability to communicate back and forth has to be able to occur. If you have those three things, you have the chance to build that relationship. If you’re missing one, this is where two out of three is bad. If you’re missing one, it’s probably not going to work. But never having this
Elise – @TheOncoPT (12:37)
Mm-hmm.
Jimmy Jam (12:38)
framework, might not as a healthcare provider, you might be sitting there like, don’t get it. This person’s not the patient is non compliant. Okay, let’s go backwards. affinity, reality, communication. Well, I said it. Okay, what’d you say? Let’s review. What did you say? you spoke at a level that you might talk to a colleague. They didn’t get it, man. They had affinity wanted to you were on the same page. But okay, but how about reality? Yeah, she’s talking about doing this. And I’m, I don’t think that’s possible. So you can you can work backwards.
and figure out where the communication broke down. The last thing I’ll say is because this isn’t taught and people a lot of times, especially on LinkedIn now, right? Because we’re all trying to boost up our LinkedIn profile, communication is a skill. Well, just like PT, just like anything, you can have one year experience 20 times, never improving, or you could have 20 different years of experience where you’re improving. But you have to, just as an exercise, you have to say,
This is what I’m improving at. This is how I’m doing it. Just doing it. Just doing a bad bicep curl over and over again does not make necessarily make you as strong as you could be if you did it better or if you improved on it. So communication is a skill. My other suggestion was we could talk to instead of watch your mouth. I was going to suggest why are these soft skills so damn hard is a good is a good like alternate title, which is should be easy. Like I learned how to talk when I was a baby. Right. Why is this so hard?
Because there’s a human on the other end, that’s why.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (14:05)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, and yeah, go ahead, Adam.
Adam (14:07)
Yeah. kind of, sorry,
just dovetailing off of that, know, Jimmy brings up, you know, we have these frameworks and right. Like most of us are taught in PT school, like how to take a subjective interview. And we get this like very rote script of how we’re supposed to go through it. And then, you know, students and new grads sound like robots, just kind of regurgitating the same thing over and over again.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (14:31)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (14:34)
And like Jimmy said, it’s a skill. something that you have to learn. It’s something that you have to practice. It’s something you have to put a lot of effort in to get better at.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (14:43)
I find my number one pro tip for receiving a history, Adam, I don’t take a history from patients, I receive it. And that mindset makes a huge difference, right? I received that history, I don’t take it. I’m not taking anything from my patients. I’m not taking anything from my patients. I will just sit next to them and oftentimes I’ll say, tell me.
And they do. So finding ways for them to just feel comfortable with you, giving you the information that you need. I think the data shows that we interrupt after like 12 seconds or something like that. And do I need to get all that information on the flow sheet? I sure do. I need to know how many stairs they have. I need to know whether they have health insurance. I need to know who’s going to be at home with them.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (15:16)
Mm-hmm.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (15:26)
I need to know that. And sometimes I will just go through and ask all of that. It depends on the person, right? But if you walk into a room with a patient who is not ready to give you anything, asking them and then receiving it is, is I find sometimes it’s just the best way to move forward.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (15:47)
I like to tell on copetes cause that’s who I usually talk to. if you will shut up long enough, people will usually tell you what they’re experiencing because you’re right. Like we have a tendency to interrupt our patients. mean, the data is there. Like this is not me pulling, you know, numbers out of my ear. These are research facts on how much we’d have a tendency to just interrupt our patients to redirect the flow. And I think it was genuinely Adam.
who was one of the first people to really call attention, I think, in the onco PT space of just how bad we are at doing this. But again, going back to what Jimmy has said multiple times in this interview already, grace, right? We get some space because this was not something that we necessarily practiced over and over again, like we did with our transfers, our mobilizations, et cetera.
This is the other half of PT, right? We have the hard skills that we learn in PT school, but then we have these quote soft skills, the communication, the meeting patients where they’re at, like we’ve talked about multiple times here that really make PT what it is and what it should be for our patients. And I’d really like to go back to what Rebekah said previously, which is, need my patients to, I need to be able to establish that therapeutic alliance with my patients.
within a couple seconds or minutes of walking in that door because in acute care in the emergency department, you only have so much time with your patients. Whereas in outpatient, I’ve got a little more time. Not that that doesn’t mean that I need to do this just as quickly, but I’d love to kind of talk a little bit more about not only do we need our patients to have trust in us. I think they also need to know the
the why behind what the heck we’re doing. And again, I think we’re good at saying maybe this is what we’re gonna do, but not exactly getting, and we might say, know, like, cause this is gonna help da-da-da-da-da, but not connecting that to the what it’s going to do, how it’s going to affect, how it’s going to change that person’s life. And we talked off script. So before the interview started about, sorry, Adam, this was before you joined.
about how we may not be able to change the world, but we may be able to change one world. And I think that’s how it starts. So can we talk a little bit about not just the trust, but the getting the patient to be on the same level as us in that same kind of reality on like what we’re working towards and why we’re working towards it.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (18:21)
Can we just get away from the like, this is what we’re gonna do? Like as a physical therapist, like we’ll be walking into every room, this is what we’re gonna do. And I think that’s a big part of that, right? Like, and we talk about patient centered care and we talk about focusing on the patient goals. And like in the emergency department, I have to balance the goals of the emergency department, the healthcare system, the patient, like all of those things, right? But.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (18:32)
Yeah.
Adam (18:38)
you
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (18:47)
What is that patient’s expectation? What are their needs? And how am I going to help them? So I think the patient’s question really should be, what do I want? And how can I help myself with that? And how can you help me with that? And so instead of me saying, this is what we’re going to do, I want to hear from the patient. This is what they need. This is what they want. This is what they expect. And then I can say, here’s how I can partner with you.
to get you to that space, right? But I think we have to like part of just what you said. What if we’re changing this person’s world in a way that they don’t want, right? The other quote I heard yesterday in a symposium was going to the emergency department can be life altering for an older adult, even just one time, right? And so when you talk about changing a world, like the recommendations and the plan that I make for that older adult can completely change their life’s trajectory.
So how do I partner with that therapeutic alliance with that patient to offer them what I have to offer and then give them that choice? And I think that goes a long way towards building alliance. But we have to stop going into rooms and saying, this is what we’re gonna do.
Adam (20:00)
Yeah, this is this is one of my favorite exercises to do with students when I have them on our oncology unit. So Elise talks about like finding that why, right? So how do we connect something functional to something that is really important for our patients? So, you know, we talk about in the cancer world, right? We have these patients that come in and go through these treatments and get super deconditioned. And now I have to go.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (20:15)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (20:25)
they feel like crap every day and convince them to work with me to maintain their strength, to maintain their mobility. And they don’t want to do it. So, you know, that older patient that’s going through cancer, you know, connecting, you know, doing sit to stands with them being able to get up and down off the floor when they play with their grandkids, when they go home, making sure that
my AYA patients are maintaining their mobility and their strength and their cognitive function so that when they get through treatment, they can go back to school or they can go back to work and kind of take their life off of pause and get back to doing the things that they want to do. You know, being able to encourage a patient that’s going through a bone marrow transplant that yes, someday you will be able to get back to all of those recreational activities that you enjoy that bring meaning to your life that, know, you know, get you out and active and doing stuff.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (21:01)
Mm-hmm.
Adam (21:18)
But it’s the sucky part right now that we have to get through to get you back to all of those other things.
Jimmy McKay (21:25)
Yeah, I try to break things down into the basics, right? That’s the only way stupid people like me can can make sure we can we can stay up to date, right? So there’s only six questions you can ask. That’s it. That can’t be six questions. Well, it’s who, what, where, when, why and how. Now there’s infinite variations of those things, right? So people might fight me on it. But a Franciscan friar taught me that right brown robe.
rope around his waist in journalism 101. And I look at them and if I break them apart into two different groups, because now that’s where my PT brain comes in, I’ve got three on my left, those are subjective, and three on the right, those are objective. The subjective is who, what and why. Big, open-ended things. We tend to, in PT, focus on the group in my mind on the right, the tactical, the objective, how, where and when.
Here’s what we’re going to do. Here’s how we’re going to do it. Here’s where you should be doing it and we’re not maybe where you shouldn’t be doing it. And here’s how many times here’s when we love to focus on the hard objective things. And I think in PT school, a lot of it was I heard this phrase thrown around a lot, which was patient education. was, you know, throw it there. We never double clicked. We never zoomed in and said how that was going to happen. Educate the patient on, you know, this, this. Got it. Got it. Okay. Good. Is this going to be on a test? Okay. Patient education, right? Okay.
We never double clicked on how you would do that. Right. So we focus a lot on the how, where, and when of what we want them to do, but never the delivery device to get them to achieve understanding. And I think you get that by what Adam and Rebecca were focused on, which is who are you talking to? What are their problems? Right. List that. That’s a, that’s a chart. What are the things you can bring to the table? Right. What are the things that you can add and where those two things crossover where the who they’re what
And you’re what were there what and you’re what cross in that perfect Venn diagram of life. That’s your shared why that’s your button. That’s your thread that you you want to get back to this? Cool, cool, cool. Then that’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re in the room together. I’m focused on this. You’re focused on this. You now have my attention. I call it the eyebrow test. Once when you speak someone’s problem and they go, Ooh, their eyebrow goes up. Got you. Got it. That’s the thread I’m going to pull now. No offense, man, but
Second year PT student can work on how, where, when. That’s formulaic, right? Good, go to the evidence. Go to the evidence, do that, right? And then you get to interject some creativity too, because just doing an exercise, you can now be fun in how you do that exercise. You can spice it up. But to me, look at it, three questions on the left, three questions on the right. Who, what, where, when, why, and how.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (24:07)
sometimes patients are not ready to make the change that you are trying to come in, you know, coming up in on your high horse and like, we’re going to do this and this and this. And that was something that a couple of years ago, actually at last year’s cancer rehab community conference, Dr. Andrew Chongaway talked about quite a bit, which is you can come in with this plan and it might be an amazing plan, but if your patients, if your clients are not ready for that,
It’s not going to happen. Jimmy, I think it was Jimmy who was talking about this. It’s coming back to me now. But as far as, know, patients may not be at the, you know, at the stage you want them to be at to make this happen, but it’s almost a little bit relieving when you said that, Jimmy, of, know, your job isn’t to make this patient go and make all these changes to completely change their life and whatnot. That would be great. That would be amazing. That would be ideal.
but we’re also dealing with humans here. Humans who have their own life and their own set of circumstances and their own situations that they’re dealing with. And so it’s really easy for us to come in as the quote professional and be like, is this what needs to happen? It’s how you’re make it happen. So go and do the thing. And that’s not always the case, especially I think in, the emergency department and inpatient oncology.
That’s just not how things happen. That’s not how things happen in the world, in oncology, in outpatient, in anywhere else. But I think that’s a, we have to get over our own ego. And I did steal that from Adam’s presentation this past weekend at this year’s Cancer Rehab Community Conference.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (25:46)
I feel like we walk into a room, right? We’ve assessed the problem and we’re like, here’s the solution. It’s that easy. And then the patient’s like, looks at that and they weigh that, they weigh the cost benefit of that, they weigh the what they would need to put into that. And then sometimes they decide, no, like it’s not worth that, right? Or no, that’s not something I’m gonna do. And other times they might think,
I would love to do that, but there’s no way I’m gonna be able to do that, right? And I think about myself with that too, like would I like to be this like 100 % healthy person who follows every recommendation? Yes, I would.
But I also have three kids and like four jobs and like my life is not set up in a way that I’m gonna get to bed at the same time every day and then I’m gonna drink 18 glasses of water and we need all my protein in and we’re gonna meet all of the exercise guidelines every single week and I’m gonna have time for myself and my hobbies and make sure I’m connecting with friends and family on a regular basis and meditating every time I’m in the elevator, right? I would love to be able to do all of that but to me that sounds impossible and not like something.
I can do or am willing to do. And when we walk into a patient room and we’re like, here’s the solution. And we haven’t looked at that patient’s life at all. That patient’s like, what are you talking about? That’s not a solution. That’s just another problem. So I think trying to figure out how to make solutions for the human in front of you is also something we’re not great at. Like the textbook says, this is the answer to this problem. And we can spit that right back out. But how can we work with humans?
Adam (27:15)
you
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (27:19)
to connect into the mosaic of their life to actually result in success. And that’s therapeutic alliance. And that’s what people want. And that’s where the value comes in.
Adam (27:32)
And another really tricky part of that is when we go into that room and we go full bore PT mode and you break that trust with a patient, how do you go back and fix it? Because if that trust is broken and you don’t take the steps to repair it, that patient is not gonna wanna work with you. You’re not gonna have good outcomes. You’re not gonna have a good relationship.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (27:45)
Yeah, I know.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (27:55)
Shoot, I’ve learned that the hard way for sure. Like I have immediate examples that come to my head with that.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (27:58)
Absolutely.
Absolutely, absolutely. Now, when, first of all, when is your session happening at CSM?
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (28:10)
That’s an Adam question.
Jimmy McKay (28:17)
So, you know, we’ll be out late Friday, and then coming in. going to be three espressos deep at seven 45 ready to run through a brick wall for this thing.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (28:30)
I’m ready for it. I think this will be a great presentation to take all of what’s happened at CSM so far and then charge people to go back into their facilities on Monday morning and be like, I’m ready for it. So Saturday, February 15th, 2025 at 8 a.m. from eight to 10 a.m. What is one thing you want attendees to take away from attending your session at CSM?
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (28:59)
Ooh pick me!
Adam (28:59)
think the…
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:01)
You can do
one each, one each.
Adam (29:06)
I think the biggest thing that we want people to take away from this is that you can be a better communicator if you just put in the work.
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (29:18)
I want PTs to know, particularly if they’re feeling a little bit burned out and like physical therapy hasn’t been what they hoped it would be in their own life, that if you walk into a room and you can truly respect and receive the humanity of the person with you, with every single encounter, you’ll get some of your own back.
Jimmy McKay (29:37)
Yeah, I would say that this might seem overwhelming, like, ah, it’s outside of my comfort zone. It’s not on my skill set. I don’t think it is. Right. So I’m going to give you a little grace, but I’m saying not addressing it or not going through some steps will leave you exactly where you are now, which is like a shame to me, which is you have this thing that you know, they can help people and maybe this one skill or I think communication is more than one skill. It’s a set of skills, right? Soft skills, plural. But just, you don’t have to add everyone in this.
toolbox of soft skills, adding one or two, getting great at those, and then saying, ooh, look what that gave me. And then we can add more because usually the first slide of my presentations are two tin cans connected by a string. I’m like, that’s really what communication is. You want information to go from one person to another or one person to many, right? Look, we’re having this conversation now and lots of people are listening to it. That’s communication. Don’t overcomplicate it.
If at any point during my presentation or this presentation, it sounds too fancy or complicated, you got to call me out because it means I’m not doing a good job of simplifying because my goal is to achieve understanding. I’m to make some suggestions, but ultimately our audience, you’re going to make some decisions whether you do these things or not.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (30:53)
my God, just like we’ve been talking about, you are going to talk to us about some things we can implement and then it’s our choice, depending on where we are in life, what’s going on, on how we’re going to implement that if we choose to implement that. What a great.
It all comes together. I love it. Fantastic. Let’s go again. I’m gonna go around my screen here. Rebekah, where can people follow you and connect with you leading up to CSM and then after CSM?
Rebekah Griffith, The ED DPT (31:24)
at the EdDpt on all social media platforms.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (31:28)
Amazing. Jimmy?
Jimmy McKay (31:29)
Same thing. I started a podcast over a beer in PT school and now I’m stuck with that name. So it’s PT pint cast, even though I don’t, drink a little more vodka than I do, probably more vodka and espresso than I do beer these days, but it’s sort of like, you can’t change it. we’re too far downfield.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (31:44)
You
I getcha. All right, Adam.
Adam (31:49)
Number one place these days is the cancer rehab community on Circle. That can also be found on Instagram and Elise can share my email with anybody.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (32:00)
Absolutely, definitely will be. Again, their session, which I’m super excited for, called Watch Your Mouth, Improving Therapeutic Alliance Through Effective Communication, is happening on Saturday, February 15th, 2025 in Houston, Texas, in my time zone, y’all, at 8 a.m., 8 to 10 a.m., and we are so excited to see them present. Their session will be available on demand, but there’s going to be a ton of interactive components that you can only really get and
experience through the live encounter. So we definitely encourage you to see you there. I for one am very, very excited for this. And again, even if it’s just one takeaway to then take and implement into my practice Monday morning and to keep trying again and again, that’s what we’re all here for. And that’s how we’re going to change the world. That’s how we’re going to change our patients’ worlds one at a time. And that’s what we’re here for.
Jimmy McKay (32:54)
Stuff is simple. It doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it means it’s simple and you it’s completely doable. Like this is doable and impactful and other things that end in L.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (33:02)
Thank you so much, Rebekah, Jimmy and Adam for coming on the Onco PT podcast today. This was a great conversation. I am so excited for your CSM session. We will of course be linking all of that information in today’s show notes. But until next time, this is Elise with the Onco PT. And remember, you are exactly the physical therapist that your patients with cancer need. So let’s get to work.