Continued Professional Development (CPD)
As Chartered Physiotherapists it is in our code of practice to continually upgrade our skills, keep up to date with new research and teach and mentor younger staff, so continued professional development is a big part of our lives. Education in Kilkenny Physiotherapy clinic is what we excel at and is why so many young therapists want to come and join our team.
CPD in Kilkenny Physiotherapy Clinic
Weekly in-service training 
Fridays are our day for this. We all gather in and each week one of our staff take the lead in educating other staff. This can be anything from going through the body joint by joint to practicing treatment techniques, to patient reviews to summarising courses we have been on.
This year we have really engaged in this in-service training, and the staff have all signed learning agreements to help ensure both the staff and the management buy into education.
Practicing what we preach
During our in-services we teach each other new techniques and exercises to progress all our skills. As we constantly learn new techniques we need to know what it is our patients feel and experience, so many of our trainings involve us being the volunteer for the other staff to practice on.
Education of Students
We have links with Trinity College Dublin, University of Limerick and SETU in Carlow to provide work placements for students. We also take some students from abroad and other Irish universities. Having students on the premises really encourages us all to teach, and teaching is learning, so we all benefit from this.
Anecdotally most of our students say they learn more on their work placement with us than they learn in their college life. So that’s nice to hear.
Our students get the chance to observe physiotherapy treatments, assess and treat their own clients and to avail of the in-depth knowledge of our physiotherapists.
Visiting Speakers
We frequently invite speakers in to give talks to our staff. This year alone we’ve had Amy Dunphy, radiation therapist speaking on recognising cancers in our clients. We’ve had Conor Tierney in to demostrate the use of the VALD athletic performance testing equipment, and later this month the education team from Podiatry Products Cork are coming up to update many of our staff on assessing for orthotics. Vald training day
Formal Courses
Bringing in highly trained specialists and having them do full study days is invaluable to our staff. Earlier in the year we invited Niamh McGowan, scoliosis specialist to present her introductory study day on the rigo concept for the treatment of scoliosis. We opened this day up t other physiotherapists, and had an amazing afternoon.
We had two young ladies attend the course and allow Niamh to demonstrate her skills in treating them. We are really grateful to these young girls who shared very personal information for the good of the group.
Formal Courses off site
All our staff are happy to give up their weekends to travel to courses where they can get formal training in various treatment techniques. In October this year Oisin O’Ceallaigh and Rutuja Pakhale travelled to Dublin to avail of Johnson McEvoy’s Deep Dry Needling Course.
We’ve had other staff travel venues round the country and abroad such as to Manchester for the GoTo Mentorship programme and Birmingham for a conference on Athletic Testing with the VALD equipment.
GoTo Mentorship Programme
As part of our staff education we have joined the Dave O’Sullivan GoTo Mentorship programme, so that all our staff have access to this amazing bank of resources, and access to mentors online. So not only can our younger staff come to more senior staff for help and advice, but they also have constant access to specialist advice online and over the phone.
We spend a lot of time at our inservices working on the mentorship programme.
Education in Kilkenny Physiotherapy clinic is the basis for our sucess.