We’re all about multidisciplinary care here at TheOncoPT. But sometimes the “how” of multidisciplinary care is challenging to implement. Should your patient see multiple disciplines at the same time? Should we stack appointments in one day? Or space them out?
The cleanest answer is, it depends. But if you’re ready for a real answer, tune into today’s episode!
Dr. Sharon Gorman, PT is leading two teams as they go head to head in an Oxford Debate to deliberate if acute care PTs should or should not provide co-treatments with other therapies. (P.S. if you’ve never seen an Oxford Debate, you are in for a treat. And if “Oxford” or “debate” seems boring, this Oxford Debate promises to be anything BUT boring!)
No matter where you fall on this practice spectrum, what Dr. Gorman shares in this preview episode will challenge you to think more about why (or why not) you choose to co-treat on your next patient case.
Many factors determine if co-treating is appropriate for your patient
Dr. Gorman encourages you to ask the following questions when discerning if co-treating is most appropriate for your patient:
- What is the benefit of co-treating to the patient?
- What is the benefit of co-treating for the staff?
- What is the benefit to what you’re getting out of this encounter as a PT?
Ideally, co-treating should make care better for the patient, the staff, & the facility.
“Efficiency” is NOT the only reason to co-treat
In therapy world, “efficiency” tends to get lumped in with productivity standards, aka how many units can I cram into one session. Consider approaching co-treating with this question:
“How can I be the best steward of this patient’s resources (time, money, effort, energy, etc.) in this interaction?”
Co-treating may be an opportunity to lessen the burden our patients face, so that we can make faster progress towards functional goals.
On the other hand, treatment goals may not be conducive to co-treating. If a patient needs more intensity in their interventions, co-treating may not allow for increased intensity levels.
Co-Treating should promote patient-centered care & value
Another way to determine if co-treating is beneficial for this patient is to answer “am I promoting patient-centered care & value in this interaction?”
Remember: this is not an exclusively monetary discussion. Value provided can be in education & how much is understood, quality of treatment provided, information you gained from the patient interaction, & so much more.
Mark your calendar for AC-18059 To Co-Treat or Not to Co-Treat, That is the Question: An Oxford Debate!
This APTA-CSM session will take place on Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 11am.
This session will not be available on-demand.
About Dr. Sharon Gorman, PT
Sharon Gorman, PT, DPTSc, is Professor of Physical Therapy at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, CA. She teaches Doctor of Physical Therapy students in the areas of acute care and management of medically complex patients. She continues to practice acute care physical therapy as a Senior Physical Therapist at Kaiser Walnut Creek Medical Center. Dr. Gorman received her Doctor of Science degree in Physical Therapy at University of California/San Francisco State University, a Master of Science in Health Science at San Francisco State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy from Mt. St. Mary’s University, Los Angeles. Dr. Gorman is board certified by the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties as a Geriatric Clinical Specialist and is a Distinguished Practitioner and Fellow of the National Academies of Practice. Dr. Gorman’s professional service spans local district, state, and national American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) elected positions, committees, and volunteer activities. Dr. Gorman is the creator of the Function In Sitting Test and is actively engaged in research investigating the psychometric and predictive qualities of this standardized outcome measure.
Follow Dr. Gorman on X (formerly known as Twitter): @criticaliPT
Follow Dr. Gorman on Instagram & Threads: @SLGorman
Transcript
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:00.586)
Hey, OncoPTs and welcome back to our episode of the OncoPT Podcast where we are yet again continuing our CSM preview sessions. And this time I’ve got a really special treat for you because this session is probably unlike any others that you’ve attended at CSM. And I’m really, really excited to have today’s speaker on to talk about this very special session and what this session is about. So without further ado, Dr. Sharon Gorman, welcome to the OncoPT Podcast.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (00:29.413)
Hello, great to be here. Super excited to talk about this very interesting CSM session. She says as somebody who’s completely not biased at all because she’s presenting at it.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:36.352)
Okay.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:40.358)
You can be biased about your own session. Like that is very allowed.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (00:47.582)
Okay, so before we get into this very unique kind of setup for a CSM session, can you tell the listener a little bit about you?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (00:55.781)
My name is Sharon Corman. I’m an acute care PT. I also am an academician. I am the interim chair and professor in the department of PT at Samuel Merritt University in Oakland, California, but I do still practice clinically. I work a few weekend days a month at Kaiser Permanente as a senior PT at their medical center in Walnut Creek, California.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (01:19.47)
That is so exciting. And then how in the world did you wind up presenting at this year’s CSM with this? Okay, so we’re going to just talk about the title right now. So the session is called To Co-Treat or Not to Co-Treat? That is the question in Oxford Debate. So let’s just dive right into it, shall we?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (01:39.297)
Let’s dive right into it. So I was actually on the APTA Conference Planning Committee eons ago, I’m not gonna give a date to go with the gray hair. And I was on that committee the first year they did an Oxford debate at that conference, which now has become an ongoing thing. They had it at that conference, now they have one at the Educational Leadership Conference.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (01:56.098)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (02:03.605)
And for those of you that don’t know, an Oxford debate is not a dry, boring debate. It’s also not a forensics debate where people are trying to speak as much as they can in a time limit. It is a very interactive debate. And don’t let the word Oxford scare you. I remember when I heard that first, I was like, oh, it must be like gowns and British, and do we drink tea or something? And it’s absolutely the opposite of that.
It is very interactive. The audience is encouraged to jeer the presenters, to make a lot of noise if they agree with something or if they don’t agree with something. Actually, one of the ways to know the way the debate is swaying the audience is people are supposed to actually get up out of their chairs and move from one side of the room to the other based on what they’re agreeing with at that point in time. There is a chance for the audience to ask questions.
of the debate teams and then there is a little bit of informal voting that happens at the end so the audience can make their input before the moderator denounces the winner. And I put winner in quotes because it’s not like we’re winning anything. So that’s my history with Oxford Debates. A few years ago, some people at one of the booths at CSM, we were lamenting that
Elise – @TheOncoPT (03:19.415)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (03:25.069)
you know, with that one conference gone, you know, if you don’t go to ELC, there’s no more Oxford debates. And we went, well, why don’t we propose a session for acute care and do an Oxford debate? So last year we got accepted and we did an Oxford debate and it was a little crazy. I was not on the winning side, I’m just gonna say that. And the team of us, the three members of the pro team and the three members of the con team and our moderator, we had so much fun.
We came home from conference and went, let’s come up with another topic. And let’s do it again. And our moderator is still our moderator, but we’ve mixed up the teams a little. So we’re not the exact same teams. And then this was the topic that we decided to do this year.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (03:57.218)
Oh, how cool!
Elise – @TheOncoPT (04:06.433)
Very nice.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (04:11.318)
So I have to tell you, I have a slight history with Oxford Debate. So in PT school, it was the very first semester at the very, very end of that very first summer. And so in one of our classes, we were, you know, we did like mini Oxford Debates. And so we were all divided up into teams and there was a pro team, there was a con team. And I was on the con team. And my now husband was actually on the pro team. Now we weren’t dating at the time.
But what everybody jokes in PT school is that what caught his attention is I was previously this super quiet little tiny, like didn’t speak person in the back. And then I came out in the Oxford debate with a caftan, which is kind of like a moomoo situation. And I gave like a sermon in class, like jumping up and down the hall, like in the aisles and everything. And that was kind of the day that Elise was born in many of my classmates’ eyes. So like Oxford debate.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (04:52.405)
Yes!
Elise – @TheOncoPT (05:07.41)
is something that I look back on so fondly because it was fun. I got to kind of show off my crazy personality, which we were talking about before the episode. And then I think I may have also wooed my husband that day, which like, you know, three in one kind of deal. It didn’t matter that we lost.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (05:21.765)
your benefit.
It doesn’t matter. I was on one of the Oxford debate teams at ELC, the Educational Leadership Conference, and I got to live my lifelong dream of portraying Captain Kirk.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (05:30.303)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (05:37.053)
because our theme was Star Trek and so I got to be Captain Kirk and you have no idea how excited I was and now I have a really good Halloween costume.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (05:47.53)
Oh my God. Is Captain Kirk making an appearance at CSM or do we have another character to look forward to? Oh, smart. That’s smart, that’s smart.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (05:53.342)
We’re not gonna say. I don’t know what the other team is doing. I also need to be really honest. We make kind of a slide deck that if you go into the CSM app when it opens, it’s got who the teams are. It’s got how many minutes for pro and then con and what’s gonna happen. It does not have any of the slides that either of the teams will be showing because we don’t want to give away our arguments.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (06:08.44)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (06:21.261)
We also don’t wanna give away our theme because we always, teams usually have a theme and they dress up according to that theme or act like that theme, whatever. So yeah, last year we were debating about simulation and our team, we dressed up like crash test dummies.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (06:21.514)
Right, right.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (06:26.04)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (06:44.098)
which was pretty fun.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (06:44.706)
First of all, major, major props and congrats on the themes. Like I’ve already so, that’s what I’m saying.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (06:51.845)
You know, this year’s themes are really hard. It’s like, co-treating. I have to admit that, like, we have a lot of ideas, and I’m gonna just, for the other team, if they’re listening to this, we have not even solidified our theme yet because we can’t figure out how to do one. But also, if you heard something, I don’t know, maybe that’s our theme, maybe it’s not our theme, because we don’t even know yet.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (07:14.482)
And if you’re listening to this later, maybe, like, maybe you know, maybe you don’t know kind of deal.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (07:19.693)
You’re gonna have to come to find out.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (07:23.714)
So quick plug, just so people can already mark it on their calendar, when is your session? So we can mark it off on that space.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (07:25.901)
Yes.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (07:31.161)
Thursday, February 15th, I believe it is. I wrote 14th, but I believe it’s the 15th, at 11 a.m. and we’re in the Commonwealth Room, wherever that may be. Check the app, rooms sometimes change, but yep, we’re on Thursday at 11, so we’re basically like that second session on Thursday, so we’re trying to pump it as like, come get excited and a little silly, but learn some things.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (07:35.284)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (07:43.294)
Excellent, okay, so they’ve already assigned you. Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (08:00.588)
right away.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (08:03.35)
So why did you settle on this topic for the Oxford Debate for this year’s CSM?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (08:12.089)
Well, we try and pick a topic that kind of really doesn’t have a winning side. Let’s be honest, we’re not like all about, like we’re gonna crush people. It’s not like one side is totally right and one side is totally wrong. It’s really kind of an opportunity to educate people about what the evidence might be on a topic, what the current state of the field says about the topic, what best practices might say about the topic, what experts might say about the topic.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (08:24.992)
Okay.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (08:41.613)
without standing there with slides that have bullet points saying evidence says in a kind of just more fun format. This topic comes up constantly on our acute care discussion boards all the time. How do I do it? Do I do it? Should I do it? You shouldn’t do it. People have all kinds of opinions. So that’s also kind of a, we’ve realized kind of a good thing for a debate is to see if we can present.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (09:02.933)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (09:09.109)
other opinions, make sure people have thought through their opinions. And then again, like I said, it’s kind of a more interesting way to share up to date evidence in an area that maybe doesn’t have such concrete, like there is a practice guideline or it is not legal to do this thing. You can’t debate that. If it’s not legal, it’s not legal. And I think we know who’s going to win this debate. So we try to pick something that kind of, you know, you…
It’s the, it’s depends land and let’s talk about what it depends on.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (09:43.406)
Mm-hmm. So give me a little background. As someone who has worked predominantly in outpatient oncology, I really don’t do a whole lot where I’m working at the same time with another professional. So can you give me a little context for the Oxford debate that we’re setting up here?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (10:02.021)
So the other reason we thought this was a great topic is this is something that comes up a lot sometimes at the hospital. Let’s be honest, all the professions are there. Sometimes you have really complicated patients. Who’s gonna help you if you can’t do everything on your own? You have a lot of options. Who’s gonna be the person who helps you? Does it make more sense to have somebody from another profession be that other?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (10:15.182)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (10:30.041)
person who’s helping out, does it make less sense? When or where does it do that? Is it wasteful of resources? Cause you have two pretty highly skilled professionals working with somebody at the same time. Or is it additive? Can you learn something from the other person? Does it depend on the skill level and the education level and the expertise level of those two providers?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (10:57.634)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (10:58.701)
Is it wasteful if they’re both really high skilled and very educated? Or is it, you know, maybe a great way to show students or somebody new to the setting, what somebody in another profession does? There’s a lot of different kinds of ways to think about it, but a lot of the time it really generates from a, I need more hands than I have and who can be those hands.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (11:14.253)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (11:26.309)
Because that happens a lot in the hospital, especially in different settings, or with some of the patients that we have who are a lot lower functioning. I mean, equipment is great, but it can’t do everything.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (11:28.771)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (11:36.082)
Mm-hmm. I’m not gonna lie.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (11:41.694)
Yeah, I’m not going to lie, Sharon. I did not consider pretty much like 75% of the factors that you named for one weird other previously. I was like, you either have another person there or not.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (11:53.777)
But again, that’s one of those things if you don’t work in that setting a lot, it might be really foreign to you. Like, why would we do that? Oh my God, we can’t bill the same. And it’s like, yeah, you can’t. But you know what, 95% of the time when I’m in the hospital, everything’s billed under a DRG anyway. I need to be effective. I’m, you know, it’s not, it’s very different in an outpatient setting. Yeah. Because if you’re splitting a half an hour, well, you only can bill 15 minutes.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (12:13.663)
Right.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (12:18.062)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (12:21.369)
and the other person can only bill 15 minutes. Is that actually a good use of resources? But acute care can be a lot different, especially critical care or very low functioning patients.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (12:32.838)
Mm-hmm. Now, the other…
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (12:35.269)
Or complicated discharges, that’s probably the other one, really complicated discharges, where you’re gonna have to go find all those people and talk to them anyway. Sometimes having more than one of them in the room can just save a lot of time.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (12:40.797)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (12:49.546)
you know, yeah, can you get kind of can you kind of get to the same conclusion a little faster than like what you could on your own potentially?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (12:54.361)
Yeah, yeah, without having to check in with three people. If two of them are already there and you guys can come to consensus and then go talk to the person who wasn’t there, okay. It could be more efficient maybe, weirdly enough.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:03.574)
Right? Hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:09.442)
So the other…
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (13:09.705)
Also, it can be really hard to do because if you’ve got a schedule two people who don’t really have a schedule, sometimes it’s actually a horrific complication to your day to think this is a great plan, but like, okay, well, I’m ready, they’re not ready. Okay, I’m going to go see someone else. Okay, now they’re ready and I’m not ready. Yeah, yeah. Do I go to lunch? What’s going to happen? Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:14.195)
Oh my God.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:26.326)
Do I what?
Right? Do I wait for them? Do I come back? Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:37.698)
That’s a lot to think about.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (13:37.925)
So again, pros and cons. That’s why it’s also a good debate. There’s a lot of different pros and cons, which I probably gave away a lot of our arguments, but we’ll give them in much better way when we’re there. Plus this is just me out of six people on these teams. So, other people will have thoughts, I am sure.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:42.734)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:48.566)
This is the abbreviated version.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (13:55.926)
That was my next question, Sharon, is who all is on the teams with you, both on your team but also the opposing side’s team here?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (14:05.433)
So this year I am on the con team, which we are saying co-treating is okay-dokey. And my team is made up of myself, Dr. Aaron Thomas, who’s at Ohio State, and Adele Mazensky, who is at Henry Ford in Detroit. That is the con team. We are saying co-treat, okay-dokey. The pro team, garbage, no, I’m just kidding, who is saying no, co-treating, no.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (14:12.448)
Okay.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (14:21.972)
Okay.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (14:29.782)
Hehehehe
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (14:35.341)
That is Dr. Daniel Dale who is in Georgia, Katie Brito who is in Chicago and Elisa Curry who is also in Northern California right down the street from me probably right now.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (14:47.07)
Oh my god, nice.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (14:48.461)
And then our moderator is Edward Mathis. And he was the moderator last year, and he’s gonna have another theme to moderate this year. Last year he was a circus ringmaster. I don’t know what he’s doing this year. He said he’s getting a different costume. That’s all I know.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (14:55.822)
Thanks for watching!
Elise – @TheOncoPT (15:00.742)
Oooo
Elise – @TheOncoPT (15:04.262)
I already like all the costumes and props that are coming with this. Like I personally am very much like a costume prop person. So this is very, very exciting for me.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (15:15.906)
did you all come together though? I know this isn’t the first Oxford debate that you’ve done with this cohort. How did you all come together and what kind of backgrounds does everybody have that they’re like, let’s do an acute care Oxford debate set up here?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (15:31.397)
So I want to say four or five of us were hanging out at the acute care section booth during like unopposed hours. And we were lamenting no Oxford debate. And we were like, hey, and we thought about what can we do as a question. Somebody said something about simulation. And that’s kind of how we pulled together some of these teams was we had a team that was heavy people who did a lot of simulation and a team that was more clinicians.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (15:39.153)
Yeah, okay.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (15:51.436)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (15:57.485)
but we all really liked working with each other. So that’s where it was like, okay, that was fun. Are we gonna do it again? And then a few of the people on the team at a different point last year at CSM were at the booth and they were like thinking of topics. And that’s where we all got an email saying, okay, we think this is a really good topic.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (16:16.142)
Oh my God, how cool is that to have like a repeat? I feel like that’s an invitational, right?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (16:18.289)
I know it was actually kind of fun. Yeah, well, and then we all met and we’re like, do we wanna stay in the same teams? And we’re like, let’s mix it up a little and mix up the teams. And Edward was like, I wanna stay the moderator. I like that. And I was like, okay, mister, I wanna be in charge of people, sure. And the rest of us were like, and I think, what I did a random, I did like, I gave us all numbers and then I did a sort random into two groups. And that’s how we ended up with our two groups for this year.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (16:32.43)
There we go. Hahaha.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (16:48.045)
Ha ha!
Elise – @TheOncoPT (16:48.438)
What do you hope that people will take away from this session of like, if I learn one thing from this session, what do you think that one thing should be potentially?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (17:02.681)
that there are multiple factors in making the decision whether or not to consider co-treating and at least to have thought it through and not have it be a, I’m desperate and I don’t, I don’t want that decision to be I have no one else. That would be sad. I mean, there’s some systems things if that’s the case, but it can be a decision that somebody needs to make.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (17:10.382)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (17:23.021)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (17:30.473)
and that they’ve thought through some of the factors for making it, either pro or con. That they’ve definitely gone through a thought process and really thought about what is the benefit to the patient primarily, what is the benefit to the, you know, the rest of the staff? What is the benefit to what you’re getting out of it as a PT to understand or be able to document or something?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (17:34.764)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (17:59.893)
I really want people for it not to be some kind of automatic, I don’t know what else to do kind of decision. And that it might really vary depending on the kinds of patients you see, the kind of facility you work at, the working relationships you have with those other staff people, the staffing levels of the different professions.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (18:09.101)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (18:25.601)
So really just to have thought it through where it’s not like you’re not imposing something that is actually making somebody else’s day worse. You know, it should be better for the patient, it should be better for the therapist, it should be better for the facility if everything’s going really well.
Now do we always get that? Probably not. But again, at least if you’ve thought through some of the different reasons why, you can go, why is this working? Why isn’t this working? Or when might it be time to not do it?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (18:56.35)
Yeah, I feel like this already is setting, you know, viewers and attendees up to think at a higher level than maybe what they would have before this session, or maybe just given a little more insight into, you know, why are you making the decision that you are? Because I think sometimes, especially as a new clinician, which we talked offline, you know, that’s a lot of my listeners.
A lot of the time, especially in the early years, we are just trying to survive. And so we’re making these decisions that are kind of serving us in a good hearted way of how can I get through this as easily and as straightforward as possible for both me and the patient. But this kind of challenges, I feel like the attendee to transcend that a little bit and start thinking a little bigger picture about some of these things.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (19:52.781)
That’s, I think, what all of us that are on this particular session would love to have people leave. Even if it’s just, I didn’t realize there were so many things I could be thinking about. You know, I don’t want it to be the new grad who the OT goes, we’re going to co-treat and you don’t know what to say. Or you’re thinking, this is not, they’re not getting as much out of this as they could on my end. How do I, you know,
how do I have that discussion? Because I don’t even know what it is that I can say, like, hey, maybe this isn’t a good thing anymore. Or it’s again, you get the patient and that’s what everybody’s been doing. So you’re like, okay, I’m just gonna do that. Well, great, you might start from that, but it is your opportunity if you’re seeing them to chime in and as somebody who works per diem, it is your opportunity.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (20:34.531)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (20:45.017)
to chime in and maybe challenge people going, I don’t think that this is the most effective. Maybe this doesn’t have to happen the next time you see them or maybe a few sessions a week is enough to co-treat and not every single one or dovetailing more than co-treating somebody starts, the other person comes in, they do a little together, that first person leaves and then the other person finishes. So it’s only like a partial co-treat. But again, getting people to think about how to map.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (20:53.038)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (21:07.086)
Uh huh.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (21:13.457)
this as a potential tool and how it can be abused, for lack of a better word. And again to give people talking points and thinking points I think is really important especially like you’re talking about with new grads, people who aren’t experienced in these settings, people who are changing settings, you know you go from a community hospital to like an academic medical center
Elise – @TheOncoPT (21:19.374)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (21:40.201)
Sometimes the expectation is a lot different in what can get done, what should be done, or how sick the patients are, how much other staff can help you. Again, you notice it says co-treat, it doesn’t say who we’re co-treating with. So even just what professional might be the person who can help me with this, and what can I expect from that?
could be an important factor.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (22:02.91)
I do think this is a very interesting opportunity, even as an outpatient therapist, to kind of think, again, pull myself out a little bit, think a little bit more about how can I better interact with the care team? Because ideally, and this is something that some of my previous guests have really talked about over this past year, is the human at the center and then surrounding them with this care team that really serves to close any and all gaps in their care and around them.
And if we’re going to do that, like we do have to be able to work with and alongside other care team members. And I really like, cause that’s, I’ve picked up on a couple comments you’ve made about, you know, this isn’t necessarily, we’re just talking like OT here, right? We’re talking about a lot of other potential people and even, yes.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (22:47.989)
It could be speech language pathology. It could be how you’re getting the nursing staff to help you. One day I would consider it a treatment. I had a patient a few months ago where they were having a lot of intractable pain. Basically it was, can we get this pain under control enough so this person can go home? Or is this so bad that the person is really gonna need to go to something like a skilled nursing facility for a short period of time until we figure out.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (23:15.016)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (23:17.361)
to do this. And I had just started and the physician came in and we were both in there, I want to say it was an hour together talking to the family, talking to the patient. He was watching what I was doing. We were talking about things. We figured out that the patient was really afraid of taking too many pain medications. It ended up being probably one of the best.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (23:19.063)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (23:26.314)
Whoa.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (23:39.813)
productive co-treats I ever had because we both left the room knowing exactly what we were gonna recommend for this patient and why and we knew the family had been educated and the patient had been educated and we were both on the same page So, you know that could be a co-treat. I considered that a co-treat I don’t know if the physician necessarily did but doesn’t matter to me. He was in there pretty much the whole time. I was in there
Elise – @TheOncoPT (23:45.716)
Oh my god.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (24:05.686)
I feel like as a non-acute therapist, that is a co-treat, right? Like, that’s a co-treat.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (24:09.583)
Yeah.
Or even like the social worker, I’ve had that happen where the social worker’s in the room and I come in and they’re like, oh, can you get them up so I can see too? And it’s like, all right, we’ll do this. You can watch, you can figure it out. Then you get an idea of when I say they don’t really need a lot of help, see? They don’t really need a lot.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (24:24.737)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (24:31.981)
But again, I really appreciate that understanding as somebody who kind of maybe primarily works in outpatient. Like there is something to learn from this. What are these other people doing? You know, and you’ve got somebody who maybe is being seen by, especially if you’re talking about your oncology patients, they have so many providers that are going on. How are you sequencing that? Could you sequence that better? Like, you know, let’s not.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (24:41.92)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (24:53.015)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (24:56.691)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (24:59.481)
have a PT appointment right after this appointment if somebody has cancer related fatigue because they are not going to be able to do a whole lot. So unless you want to do a lot of education, you might not get much done. You know, so how to even think about, you know, maybe it’s not in the same day in the same room in the same facility, but this person is seeing four or five people over the course of a week or two, is there a better way to sequence all of that?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (25:18.83)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (25:26.165)
And that’s just kind of the same concept, but drawn out and in a different setting.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (25:26.862)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (25:30.507)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (25:33.87)
I feel like there’s almost a theme here of, you know, how can we be, and I do think, you know, there’s a tendency sometimes to be like, how can we be more efficient, right? Like how can we be more efficient? And it tends to be thought of in this like time is money kind of situation as far as for me, like third party, you know, payer, et cetera, billing. But I really appreciate how there is an efficiency conversation happening. I think.
maybe not, if not like explicitly within the debate, because it hasn’t happened yet, so I can’t say for certain. But there are these underlying themes of how can we be most, maybe the better phrases here, how can we be the best stewards of the time and resources we have to work with the patient to ultimately get them to where they need to be? And I think that is something, you know, even again,
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (26:04.244)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (26:26.814)
Outpatient oncology, I really love what you said Sharon about the sequencing of appointments and how can we better plan to set our patients up for success when we know that I think on average like the average oncology patient has 13 specialists that they’re seeing during their active treatment time. I mean, I can barely keep up with one appointment some days, let alone seeing all these other providers.
How can we maybe be better stewards of the time and effort that the patient is already putting in and that we can maybe be a little creative and kind of help figure some of that burden out for them so that we can still get stuff done but also be realistic within kind of what we’re working with here?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (27:14.877)
really appreciate that. And efficiency isn’t just about how much treatment can I cram into a tiny bit of time. Or every single second of the little bit of time I have needs to be filled. That’s one way of looking at efficiency. It’s not the only way. It could be an efficiency of, I have a better understanding of something. Or now I don’t need to sit and draft. I mean, for that physician, I did not need to write him a giant chat message or sit on the phone going back
Elise – @TheOncoPT (27:31.594)
Yep. Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (27:44.565)
and forth on the phone calls on a Saturday till I could talk to him to explain exactly what was going on. It all happened. Everything I was going to say about using pain medication, it was great to have that backup where he was absolutely agreeing with me, making slightly different points that were all leading to the same conclusion, backing me up.
That made it really efficient. Instead of the family having to spend time to hunt down two different providers to talk about what was going on with the patient, we were right there and could talk about everything. That was efficient. The other way to think of efficiency is like, are you adding value? And sometimes being efficient in these ways is how you add value. And again, to get away a little bit from everything just being about payment. And I mean, I’m a realist, but…
Elise – @TheOncoPT (28:09.197)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (28:34.592)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (28:37.605)
I also think you can be a realist and promote patient-centered care and promote value. And I think it’s valuable for a patient who’s having a lot of pain and not moving around to only have to do it once and have everybody who needs to see it, see it. I think that’s really valuable as just like one little example from that one patient. But like that could be what’s really valuable as well. I had another patient.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (28:45.262)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (28:56.694)
Yes.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:01.838)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:05.228)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (29:07.621)
I was co-treating with an occupational therapist a few months ago. Really complicated medical history, really complicated movement dysfunction, very sick. Needed to use some pretty complex lift equipment to even try and get him up to sit in a chair. Always helpful to have more people. It ended up being three of us, because we called in the nursing assistant to also help. But you know what?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:29.445)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (29:33.773)
We got him up before lunch. His wife and child showed up right after we got him up.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:39.567)
Oh my god.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (29:40.333)
We were like, we’re gonna go to lunch and then we’ll come back because we didn’t wanna leave the poor nursing assistant to have to figure out how to get him back. We’re like, we’ll come back in an hour. We’re literally gonna go eat lunch and we’ll come back in an hour because we don’t want him sitting up too long. He hasn’t done this before. Let’s not wipe him out and ruin his idea of sitting. We came back and he was more alert. He was more engaged. He was, you know, trying to mouth words. He was making eye contact.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:45.912)
to do it.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:51.595)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (29:56.184)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (30:02.667)
Oh my god.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (30:09.678)
Oh.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (30:09.717)
He was a totally different patient than when we had left him because he was with people he wanted to be awake and alert for. He doesn’t know me, he doesn’t give a garbage about me when I’m like, wake up, leave me alone, person I just met. But when your wife and your child are there and you’re sitting up and you can engage in a way that’s a lot more productive than semi reclined in a bed with a giant air mattress, he was a very different patient.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (30:36.842)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (30:39.329)
Yeah, that took a lot of time, but you know what? I think there was a lot of value because I was not sure he had that in him. And I was able to see that he absolutely had that in him. We actually ended up, I ended up documenting like beforehand, here he was on the JFK coma recovery scale, and after here he was because he wasn’t the same. And I wanted to make it really clear within that, within that like hour and a half time difference.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (30:48.023)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (31:03.559)
Oh my God.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (31:07.681)
He was a very different person. And it might’ve been the sitting and it might’ve been the family and it might’ve been the combo, but he was doing a lot better. And the family was a lot happier. The nurse was so happy. She’s like, can you sit up longer? This is great. And I’m like, we don’t know how his skin’s gonna respond to this, so no. Everything that’s good doesn’t need too much, remember. And that’s just an isolated example.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (31:24.757)
Whoa whoa.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (31:32.758)
do? Yeah. What a good example.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (31:36.173)
they don’t all go like that. I could tell you just as many where it was like, well, this was a horrible idea. But when they do work, they can work really nicely and give you information you couldn’t have gotten and let you do things that you wouldn’t have done without that many people in the room.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (31:50.65)
Mm-hmm. I love what you just said about, first of all, that example is golden. And I really hope that wasn’t one of your secret weapons for the actual debate because it’s definitely like we blabbed it on the podcast.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (32:01.985)
It might have been, but I’m sure my other two people have secret weapons and I’m sure everyone in the room, I mean, as much as I know everyone in the room is going to listen to the, everyone listening to the podcast will be in the room. Not everybody in the room may have heard the podcast. So that’ll be news to them.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (32:06.67)
Perfect.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (32:14.91)
It’s true. It’s very, very true. It could be a surprise for them too. So I love that example. I think it’s such a powerful example. And I want to pull something out that she said, which was, you know, maybe it was the sitting, maybe it was the family that was there. And then there was something else you said, and I’ve of course, forgotten it already. Right. And so I think sometimes, especially, I can, again, I’m going to throw it back to being an early clinician. It was really frustrating to not always know
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (32:31.697)
Maybe it was the combination of the two.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (32:44.342)
what I was doing that was making the difference. Because it’s obviously, you know, I had a PT school professor who would say, well, does that help? Well, do more. That’s just kind of a, it didn’t work. Do it again. And so, right. And I think that can be really frustrating, but I think this is also a great example of sometimes it’s not one thing by itself that works. Like maybe it really was the con, you know, and again, I don’t know if you said this previously.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (32:54.045)
Did it work? Do it again! When it stops working, do something else! I teach that.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (33:13.902)
Maybe it was the combination of the team working together to do this that made such a difference for that patient in that moment to kind of bring all of those factors together and get to where he was able to do that. I think that is really, really cool also. Sometimes there is a synergy that one plus one equals three, right? Yes.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (33:35.433)
Yeah, exactly. And you know what? I’ve done this enough to be comfortable with, I don’t always know. But you can try to repeat that then. Okay, that seemed to be a magical combination. Maybe we can try and see if we can capture that magic again. Oh, you know what, maybe it turns out that piece was the magical piece, or that piece was the magical piece, or maybe it was just magical.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (33:44.86)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (34:00.246)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (34:06.125)
And that’s okay, but that’s how you get at it systematically. Yeah, normally I would love to only change one thing at a time so I can know what its effect is. But we don’t always have that luxury and it’s not always realistic. And a lot of the times what we do, it’s so multimodal anyway. But I think if we’re really cognizant of what those modes are, we can then.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (34:13.552)
One variable.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (34:28.217)
Think about, well, can we change this around? Can we do this interchangeably? This was the first time we had gotten him up. This was the first time we got him up in that piece of equipment, with that piece of equipment. You know, after a few more times, it probably would only take one of us and the nursing assistant to do it. Because you do get more efficient the more you understand how to do it safely with a particular patient and all of their particular patient-related stuff. Because you don’t always know what that is.
But that first time, he had never been up before. He had a lot of medical problems. He had a lot of lines and tubes. He had a lot of complications. There were things we needed to avoid and we wanted to get him in a chair and it was gonna take two different pieces of equipment, one to get him up and the fancy chair to put him in. And we were like, I would rather not be doing this the first time by myself.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (35:18.474)
Yep.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (35:25.874)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (35:26.197)
Another set of eyes is always helpful.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (35:31.67)
I’m going to ask you to do something I did not prepare you for. Okay? But I think it’s going to be fun because we don’t have any member of the opposing team here to offer a rebuttal or their thoughts on it. What is like maybe just a knee jerk thought or response to, what do you think? This is a great example of exactly why I think co-treating is so powerful and appropriate sometimes in rehab.
What is maybe a situation where co-training is not appropriate for a patient? What do you think?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (36:04.089)
the other side. Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (36:10.469)
you know, if a patient needs more treatment intensity and you’re taking, I’m just going to use an example of an OT and a PT in co-treating, that patient might only get one visit that day.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (36:22.047)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (36:23.881)
and one visit for the amount of time that sometimes one profession could be giving them, versus two. So is that value for that patient? And that’s where I get really specific with this. And my students will tell you, I’m the queen of it depends, but let’s make a list of what it depends on. So it’s not just a rando answer, it’s an answer that makes you think about what are those things? What does it depend on?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (36:29.678)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (36:48.458)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (36:51.957)
If I really can manage that whole patient and get a productive treatment session where they’re maximizing what they’re doing and I’m maximizing my challenge and they’re working really hard, and I can do that for 45 minutes, why would I take another provider to come in and do it with me who then now doesn’t get their 45 minutes, maybe?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (37:18.935)
Yeah.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (37:19.553)
So instead of somebody getting two 45 minute treatments, let’s just say they’re only getting one. That’s not a good use of resources. That’s not a good use of, for particularly neuro in patients, that might not be a good use of that golden period of time we have right after their neurologic injury to really maximize how well they’re getting and how much improvement they can make. You now have squandered maybe 45 minutes of that.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (37:25.582)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (37:39.662)
Absolutely.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (37:43.458)
Absolutely.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (37:49.144)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (37:49.593)
that’s probably not helping your patient.
And I know the other team has that argument, so it’s fine. But that is, that is a very, and I’ll agree, that is a very fundamental argument. And that’s why it’s gotta be the right patient at the right time. Again, it’s right patient, right time, right provider or providers.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (37:54.508)
This makes me think. It was coming, right?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (38:07.903)
Right.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (38:12.546)
See how she does it y’all? She just brings it like brings it back around like that. Ha ha ha.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (38:17.133)
It’s almost like I teach this. Oh!
Elise – @TheOncoPT (38:19.23)
Wow, that’s weird, Sharon. Have you considered instruction? Like this might be a good thing to pass on to some students here.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (38:29.33)
It makes me think, Sharon, what you’re talking about with the, is this the best use of resources for the patient, you know, right patient, right time, right provider or providers? It makes me think of, sometimes I have patients who have, surprise, multiple comorbidities and all of them are particularly problematic. I know, I know, that’s so weird. It’s so strange how that works. You know.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (38:47.201)
What? You do? Oh, you’re kidding me. They don’t just have cancer?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (38:54.826)
I don’t know why they keep sending them to me that they’d have other things going on. I’m not really sure. And so very much again, when I first started, which was not that long ago, it was like I gotta treat all the impairments. All right now. And what I was doing is sometimes I was just like throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping that something would stick. And again, not really considering, is this really best for the patient right now? Like should I spread these things out to try and, hopefully,
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (39:21.825)
Or should I pick one and do a lot of one thing? Yeah, and that’s always a hard decision. I think that’s probably one of the hardest clinical decisions for a lot of our patients. Because again, your patients and my patients that way are very similar. It’s very rare they come in and it’s one thing that’s wrong and they have no history that’s significant. I mean, it happens, but they’re also usually leaving very quickly.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (39:24.022)
Should I pick one and write? And sometimes, yeah!
Elise – @TheOncoPT (39:37.77)
Yes, agreed.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (39:50.194)
Yep, see, you probably don’t see him for very long, enough to get to know that, yeah, right?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (39:52.225)
No, right, but yeah, again, it’s how do we prioritize? They have so many problems. And again, my setting, it’s really easy because the big priority is where are they going? They cannot stay in this building forever. Where are they going? What do they need to do to go to that place? If they’re going home, how do they have to function to go to home? Who needs to be trained to take care of them if they can’t do it themselves?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (40:06.024)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (40:19.501)
What equipment do they need? What follow-up do they need? If they’re not going home, how can I prove that they need treatment in a skilled nursing facility or acute rehab? Do they have the tolerance for that? Do they have enough problems for that? What’s their ultimate discharge plan? It becomes easier, I think, for in-patients sometimes, because that’s our kind of very driving force, is like, let’s triage these people and they have to leave. So what do we need to do to…
Elise – @TheOncoPT (40:19.83)
Mm-hmm.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (40:39.906)
Mm-hmm.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (40:48.485)
help them leave. And it’s easier, I think, honestly, and in some ways it’s easier. Now, the patients are really complicated, the healthcare system’s really complicated, there’s tons of people in the room, there’s all this pressure. There’s other things that aren’t as complicated, but, but I think that piece, it makes it really easy to help, especially new grads. It’s like,
Elise – @TheOncoPT (40:51.566)
Excellent point.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (41:06.322)
That’s what I was waiting for.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (41:14.305)
I get that he needs to get stronger. He’s not getting stronger in the two days he’s going to be in the hospital. Now, you can set him up on exercise and you can talk about exercise and you can give him some good exercises and make sure he’s got followup, but his strength isn’t changing in two days. So let’s just, yeah, we’re putting that aside. He needs to get out of bed and be able to walk downstairs. What are we doing about that?
Elise – @TheOncoPT (41:30.71)
He’s not getting to a five out of five tomorrow.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (41:45.034)
All right, one more time. When is your session?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (41:48.542)
It is Thursday at 11 a.m. in Commonwealth.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (41:54.966)
And then is your session going to be recorded to then view later?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (41:59.581)
It is not because the recordings are actually kind of made in advance of a presentation and then posted they aren’t like live recordings. So for people who are like why didn’t you record they’re not live recordings of the session at CSM. They’re a recording of the people doing the session at a different time than CSM and because of the audience participation component it just
Elise – @TheOncoPT (42:01.118)
Okay. Good to know.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (42:06.239)
Okay.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (42:25.293)
we were like, this would be ridiculous. Plus we’d be giving everything away to each side, so we’d probably change it all. So unfortunately, because of the live component, it will not be available on demand.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (42:32.15)
That is true.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (42:37.502)
Yeah, I’ve heard of one session, and I think this is the only time I’ve ever heard of this happening. I’m sure it’s happened previously. There’s one session that is doing a live patient Q&A that they’re actually doing at the conference, but that is the only one. Yeah, kind of like that. And so when they said that, I was like.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (42:52.513)
Oh, that like they’re having patients kind of like zoom in or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (43:01.034)
I’ve never heard of this before. So now I’ve always asked like, is anybody else doing that? Because that is really interesting. Right, right.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (43:02.905)
Yeah, that’s kind of cool.
doing something weird, yeah, no. Our weird one is please don’t be turned away by our handouts because we couldn’t put the arguments in the handouts because then the other teams would see the arguments for the other teams. So, and there actually is a slide. There is a slide in the handout that basically says we’re not putting our arguments here because we’re not giving them away before we actually deliver them right in front of your face.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (43:18.966)
That’s a really good point. I’m really glad you brought that up. So if you’re not… Ha ha ha. It doesn’t suck.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (43:33.998)
That’s such a good point, because in, so if you’re, again, if you’re new to CSM, if you haven’t done this before, in the app, you can actually go in and look at the handouts ahead of time. And so that’s sometimes a way, and I love that you brought that up, Sharon, because sometimes that’s how I’ll go through and decide of like, I’ll look at the handouts and be like, if I feel like it’s adequate, or I already know a lot of the stuff, not that I know everything, but.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (43:55.689)
or the handout seems very explanatory, which is not bad. But I’m like, I feel like I’m getting 90% of this by the slides, which I can just download, versus this one where I’m like, ooh, intriguing. There’s these questions and there’s a case with no answers and I wanna know what the answers are. Then maybe I’ll go to that one and just download the handout and read it later for the other one.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (43:59.43)
Right, right, if it’s not something, exactly, exactly.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (44:18.454)
Bingo. See, we gotta prioritize. And again, this is how we help y’all prioritize this.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (44:21.685)
Yeah, there is too much good stuff to go to. Just understand that. It is a plethora, it is riches everywhere. You will always be bummed. I can also say this, I guarantee you, there’s a session I want to see that’s Thursday at 11 that I’m not gonna get to go to because I’m doing this session at Thursday at 11. So it’s like, you’re always kinda missing out on something.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (44:38.142)
Absolutely. 100%.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (44:47.213)
But I would argue it’s also a good time to network because maybe you could meet one of those speakers and then you could hang out with them over like a beer or a cocktail and just pick their brain for like 10 minutes of like what were your top 10 takeaways from that. Thanks a lot, okay.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (44:47.383)
Yeah.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (44:57.574)
Exactly.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (45:03.594)
Move it, right? Like, okay, and now I’m gonna move on to my next presenter that I wanted to talk to and I didn’t get to attend.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (45:07.341)
Well, I say, you don’t want them to give their whole two hour presentation either because that’s not fun for them. Stick to like a few minutes. Like, what are your top two takeaways? Because I was so sad I couldn’t come to your session and I have your handout
Elise – @TheOncoPT (45:22.062)
Um, last question for you, Sharon, how can people find you and continue the conversation with you? Because this was so much fun.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (45:30.891)
You’re very fun, by the way. I am on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (45:32.706)
Thank you!
Elise – @TheOncoPT (45:38.335)
Excellent.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (45:39.653)
CriticaliPT, like critical but from California in a PT. CriticaliPT, I don’t know, I thought I was being clever. And then I’m also on Instagram and threads at S.L. Gorman, just my name kind of S, middle initial L Gorman.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (45:49.01)
I think it’s quite clever.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (45:56.302)
Perfect. I will link to all that in today’s show notes so y’all will know exactly how you can connect and follow Sharon, especially if you’re going to be going to that Oxford debate and you want to keep up with, I feel like this would be something I would want to continue following on the Gram and the platform formerly known as Twitter. Oh my God, that’s amazing.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (46:17.997)
Yeah, we put pictures up last year. We had pictures. We, yeah. The weeks leading up to it, we were taunting kind of each other on the different teams a little bit. I’m sure there’ll be some trash talking once it hits maybe February. In the new year, trash talking in the new year. Friendly trash talking. I should say we actually all really get along. It’s not like, you know, pro-con. Like we actually all get along, so.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (46:34.47)
Excellent.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (46:38.976)
I’m here for it.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (46:49.222)
Oh my God. Sharon, this has been so fun. I’m really, really excited for your session. I think there’s a lot that we can get out of this session, even if, like, again, I think that’s the beauty of the Oxford debate and some of what you talked about previously is like, this is an issue that I think the best answer is it depends. And while that frustrates me, I have also come to accept it a little more. And I do think it depends very much has a place in physical therapy, even in like
good physical therapy, like excellent physical therapists, I think ask themselves this question like all the time. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I’m so, so thrilled that I got you on here and I’m really excited to see how your Oxford debate goes and a little bit more about the theme that is to be announced.
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (47:36.053)
Yes, the mysterious theme that will be evident the day of the debate. And maybe not at all before.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (47:42.08)
Hahaha
Elise – @TheOncoPT (47:47.39)
Amazing. Oh, last question for you. And this is like completely not related to any of the other questions I’ve talked about so far. Do you pack a separate bag for your props and your costumes or how do you coordinate that?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (48:00.781)
Part of that last year was we were texting each other back and forth who has room to carry this and what wasn’t very big.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (48:11.554)
These are the logistics we have to plan for, right?
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (48:14.713)
I am very much a tiny packer. I was like, no, I have to bring my big suitcase.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (48:17.504)
Uh huh.
Oh
Sharon Gorman (she/her) (48:23.033)
I just kind of was like, I’m gonna have to bring the big suitcase and check a bag. Sacrifices I make.
Elise – @TheOncoPT (48:25.478)
And it’s just gonna happen. I feel like it paid off though, so I’m really excited to see what the scoop is for this year’s theme.