About me

Okay, so I’m the kind of person that likes to ask why.  If there isn’t a reason why something is done the way it is, then I end focusing on the why.

I’m a podiatrist, having worked in the NHS, private and commercial sectors with a masters degree in clinical biomechanics.  I’ve been working weekly with undergraduate podiatry students this academic year assisting with MSK clinics.  During these interactions I noticed supervision situations involving clinical diagnosis, decision making in clinical management and also orthotic provision and design. These seem to arise most when students encounter something outside of the standardised approach they’ve learnt.

The students have helped me to identify that something that I take for granted by having worked and undertaken further study in MSK is something that is perhaps more difficult than I thought. I believe that the clinical history is very important and that the patient does not only give you information about their pain, but also their daily lives, work, expectations, prejudices or goals etc which help to form a rounded picture of the situation rather than simply looking at the problem in isolation.  So I asked the question…why?

While it’s clear that clinical pathways and treatment algorithms are excellent for passing exams and attaining qualifications, it is still apparent that there is a fear of MSK or biomechanics in podiatry.  Putting aside the theoretical teaching of the topic of biomechanics, the subject does not lend itself well to pathways and black and white algorithms.

I believe this to be because when students are learning, while we implement acronyms to help to ensure we’ve covered all aspects of taking a history there’s always one fly in that soup – the patient.  Every patent is different and therefore every clinical history is different.

So, I wanted to try to find a way to challenge this and make is easier for students and clinicians to be able to take facilitate clinical history taking in podiatry.