Shownotes
There's a lot that can through us off our game during a clinical day and it's critical to stay agile so we can problem solve effectively and get amazing outcomes for our patients.
In this episode, I'll be talking about how we can get pulled away from a clinical flow state and the importance of navigating the inner self. I highlight some surprisingly easy ways you can stay flexible regardless of what gets thrown your way.
Outcome Measures 2.0: I'm building a web-based tool (called Clinio360) that will help physical therapists get below the surface of what makes their patients tick, click here to Join the Journey!
I also promised some more information on the 10 Cognitive Distortions which are interesting to read about to see if you identify with any.
Mentioned in this episode:
Sole
https://yoursole.com/us/health-professionals
Transcripts
Welcome to the unleash, your best clinical self podcast.
Speaker:I'm your host, Andrew Koppejan.
Speaker:If you're a physiotherapist or other movement professional,
Speaker:who feels like you're stuck in a rut, then my podcast is for you.
Speaker:This podcast is focused on helping you move from frustration to
Speaker:flow in your clinical practice.
Speaker:In each episode I'll share strategies, approaches, and my latest thinking
Speaker:on how to improve your clinical performance and keep loving what you do.
Speaker:This is episode number 62.
Speaker:This episode, I'll be talking about how to boost your clinical agility and provide
Speaker:some practical strategies on how to better respond to stressful clinical situations.
Speaker:Before I dive in, though, I want to let you know that I have a newsletter
Speaker:where I write about topics relating to improving clinical performance.
Speaker:Head over 360 clinician.com to sign up.
Speaker:I have two young boys and every night we read a storybook and I would say
Speaker:that one of the most read books in our library is called the Gruffalo.
Speaker:So wonderful little book that recounts the story of a very inventive and clever mouse
Speaker:who has to evade several forest creatures.
Speaker:And after he assumes that he's avoided all the dangers, he
Speaker:actually meets upon a Gruffalo.
Speaker:It's a rather terrible creature with knobbly knees, a poisonous wart
Speaker:at the end of his nose, and even purple prickles all over his back.
Speaker:My boys absolutely loved this book and I think it's become a
Speaker:favourite in many households.
Speaker:I thought about the resilience this little mouse showed in the story.
Speaker:It's not unlike the resilience that we actually need to experience
Speaker:in our clinical practice.
Speaker:One moment, we're feeling good about things we're joking
Speaker:with a colleague or a patient.
Speaker:Then that very next interaction we can find ourselves wondering how to respond
Speaker:to a patient who was crying because of their frustration with persistent pain.
Speaker:Often we can even have back to back experiences through our clinical day that
Speaker:can just really throw us off our game.
Speaker:Just last week, I had a situation where a patient booked in who I thought was
Speaker:a new assessment as they had created a new profile in my booking system.
Speaker:She looked familiar when I saw her but I didn't clue in that I'd actually seen her
Speaker:previously, just a couple months earlier.
Speaker:Then we sorted that out that she'd been in before and there was a bit
Speaker:of an awkward laugh about it, so it makes me feel a little more on edge.
Speaker:Then later in the session, the patient got teary-eyed because of her frustration
Speaker:of her slower than expected recovery.
Speaker:So talk about being thrown off guard.
Speaker:It can even be these little minor things, they stack up and all
Speaker:of a sudden you're just sort of feeling a little bit off centered.
Speaker:I think the reality is that things can actually change quite quickly.
Speaker:When things change quickly, we need to be flexible.
Speaker:We have to be able to adapt quickly.
Speaker:What we need is really what I call clinical agility.
Speaker:It's made me think of this great quote that I shared with a friend
Speaker:recently about the importance of staying flexible as clinicians.
Speaker:Now the article is about assessing professional competence, but I thought
Speaker:the quote could easily be applied when thinking about clinical agility.
Speaker:This is what the quote was it said, competence depends on habits of mind
Speaker:that allow the practitioner to be attentive, curious, self-aware, and
Speaker:willing to recognize and correct errors.
Speaker:So competence requires agility and I think that good clinical practice
Speaker:requires agility, but why is it important?
Speaker:I think it comes down to the fact that it helps us to stay centered.
Speaker:It helps us to be present in our interactions with patients and clients.
Speaker:We need this grounding so that we can respond with compassion and
Speaker:most importantly, we need to be able to make optimal patient decisions.
Speaker:Now the question is how do we stay clinically agile?
Speaker:I think it comes down in part to our ability to tune in what's going
Speaker:on around us but even as important is also to understand and tune
Speaker:into what's going on within us.
Speaker:And that is really a concept called self-monitoring.
Speaker:In an article by Epstein in 2008, they define self-monitoring as an ability
Speaker:to attend moment-to- moment to our own actions, curiosity, to examine the effects
Speaker:of those actions and a willingness to use those observations, to improve behavior
Speaker:and patterns of thinking in the future.
Speaker:Later on in the article, they phrase it as the ongoing habit of seeking, integrating,
Speaker:and responding to both external and internal data about one's own performance.
Speaker:When we look at these definitions, I think we can see that there's a
Speaker:process that actually takes place here.
Speaker:First off, there is an awareness of ourselves and how we're
Speaker:responding to the world around us.
Speaker:Second, there's this willingness to explore and engage with
Speaker:what's going on within us.
Speaker:And then third is this courage to then adapt and change
Speaker:based on this understanding.
Speaker:It's really in looking at bringing all three of those components together that we
Speaker:can really monitor ourselves and be able to adapt to what's going on within us.
Speaker:Now staying present and staying open sounds easy when our day is going well.
Speaker:But what happens when we start to run behind and feel overwhelmed?
Speaker:How do we stay open and present when our day starts to go sideways?
Speaker:And when we start to feel insecure, vulnerable, and ignorant.
Speaker:That really becomes the challenge.
Speaker:An important element of self-monitoring is attention.
Speaker:And it's something that I've written and talked about in previous work.
Speaker:I'd encourage you to check out my podcast episode number
Speaker:58, where I dive into that topic.
Speaker:But today I'm going to talk about some other key things that are going
Speaker:to help you to stay clinically agile.
Speaker:First off.
Speaker:I think it's really important that we get comfortable with the
Speaker:contours of our inner selves.
Speaker:We all have physiological responses to stress.
Speaker:Whether that's feeling butterflies in our stomach, or
Speaker:we get this lump in our throat.
Speaker:Whatever it is.
Speaker:But learning what those feelings are for us can actually help us to become more
Speaker:aware of how we respond under stress.
Speaker:It also can be an indication that we may need to adjust how we're actually
Speaker:interacting in that situation.
Speaker:Where do you typically feel tension in your body?
Speaker:Do you experience cold hands?
Speaker:Does your heart start to race?
Speaker:Does your breathing become more shallow?
Speaker:Do you notice a change in your voice?
Speaker:I know for myself when I'm feeling off-center I actually feel a
Speaker:tension in my chest and a tightening of muscles around my throat.
Speaker:And to help understand these sensations, I think it's really important that we
Speaker:actually practice being present in our bodies in non-stressful environments.
Speaker:We really have to get comfortable with the contours of our inner self.
Speaker:There are many ways to develop the skill of being present in our bodies.
Speaker:I found that the body scan meditation is a simple, yet really practical
Speaker:tool to help build deeper awareness.
Speaker:The original body scan was introduced by Jon Kabat Zinn.
Speaker:And it was actually about 45 minutes long.
Speaker:But there are so many different variations now of the body scan meditation, that
Speaker:range anywhere from 1 to 20 minutes.
Speaker:In your clinical day being aware of your body sensations can actually
Speaker:be a really important gateway.
Speaker:To understanding what's going on for you in your mind.
Speaker:It's a really important aspect of self-monitoring.
Speaker:Here's the tension that we find ourselves in.
Speaker:We're always oscillating in our clinical day between a place
Speaker:of discomfort and comfort.
Speaker:A large part of this oscillation is a result of where we're at emotionally.
Speaker:Managing our emotions well can actually help us to stay in a healthy
Speaker:place where we can operate in an optimal level for ourselves.
Speaker:That's really the definition of flow where we can be in between the
Speaker:extremes of discomfort and comfort.
Speaker:Oftentimes it seems that our emotions can carry us away without any rhyme or reason.
Speaker:A useful concept and understanding what affects and influences our emotions,
Speaker:is this a tool called the cognitive triangle, which highlights how our
Speaker:thoughts influence our feelings and our feelings influence our behaviors.
Speaker:When we can identify and challenge existing beliefs and thoughts that
Speaker:we experienced during the day, then we can actually start to create a
Speaker:new path to follow in the future.
Speaker:Now there are lots of different types of cognitive distortions that
Speaker:can impact and affect our emotions.
Speaker:There's 10 that are really common and I'll make sure to include
Speaker:in the show notes, a link that you can read more about them.
In a nutshell, the ten are:all or nothing thinking overgeneralization,
In a nutshell, the ten are:mental filtering, discounting the positive, jumping to conclusions,
In a nutshell, the ten are:magnification, emotional reasoning, and the use of should statements.
In a nutshell, the ten are:So I wanted to just walk through an example clinically to just talk
In a nutshell, the ten are:about how this actually takes place.
In a nutshell, the ten are:So let's say that you're doing an assessment and it's becoming more
In a nutshell, the ten are:complicated than you expected and as your history taking goes on longer, you start
In a nutshell, the ten are:to feel this tightening in your stomach.
In a nutshell, the ten are:You start to feel your breathing change and a cognitive
In a nutshell, the ten are:triangle begins to take shape.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Thought in this case is I'm never going to figure out what's going on in the
In a nutshell, the ten are:session, can start to lead to feelings of anxiety and frustration, increased
In a nutshell, the ten are:stress and this starts to result in the behavior of tuning out the patient
In a nutshell, the ten are:because you're now becoming distracted by your own anxiety and you find yourself
In a nutshell, the ten are:feeling rushed and unable to really process the data points that you're
In a nutshell, the ten are:getting in your objective assessment.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Now you can actually start to get confused about your diagnosis and
In a nutshell, the ten are:then that can actually reinforce the belief that you can't handle this
In a nutshell, the ten are:type of complex patient situation.
In a nutshell, the ten are:When we look at things here, we can see that there is a cognitive
In a nutshell, the ten are:distortion of jumping to conclusions.
In a nutshell, the ten are:And there is another cognitive distortion of all or nothing thinking
In a nutshell, the ten are:where you're telling yourself that you're no good at seeing these kinds
In a nutshell, the ten are:of clinical presentations or that you're no good at clinical practice.
In a nutshell, the ten are:So you can see how this can really easily take place in a clinical situation.
In a nutshell, the ten are:It's important to be able to nip that in the bud before
In a nutshell, the ten are:we go down that whole pathway.
In a nutshell, the ten are:The challenge that we can experience in our clinical work and we're
In a nutshell, the ten are:trying to decipher what's going on.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Is that we know that something is off, but we're really not
In a nutshell, the ten are:sure what's actually going on.
In a nutshell, the ten are:And what I find is that in those situations, It's often best to
In a nutshell, the ten are:just jot down something that you can then go through at the end of
In a nutshell, the ten are:your day and review in more detail.
In a nutshell, the ten are:I'll often find that in looking back that there's a general emotion or a visceral
In a nutshell, the ten are:experience but I'm not sure what's going on from a thinking or belief standpoint.
In a nutshell, the ten are:A process that I've found helpful in terms of being able to work
In a nutshell, the ten are:through some of these things, was outlined by psychiatrist Dr.
In a nutshell, the ten are:David Burns, where he walks through some cognitive behavioral therapy
In a nutshell, the ten are:strategies in his feeling good handbook.
In a nutshell, the ten are:There's four steps to his approach, which was A) write down the situation
In a nutshell, the ten are:and then record the negative feelings that you have regarding that situation.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Then use what's called the triple column technique where you basically
In a nutshell, the ten are:write down the thought that comes to mind or the automatic thought.
In a nutshell, the ten are:The cognitive distortion that's underneath that, and then a more
In a nutshell, the ten are:rational response where you can reframe that initial thought that you had.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Then what you do is then you reevaluate your feelings and beliefs after
In a nutshell, the ten are:you've gone through that process.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Now I want it to go through an example of how to use the triple column technique.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Let's say that you've got a patient who's come back after a
In a nutshell, the ten are:few visits and they still haven't done any of their exercises.
In a nutshell, the ten are:You might have the automatic thought of why can't this
In a nutshell, the ten are:patient get their act together?
In a nutshell, the ten are:They don't even listen to what I say.
In a nutshell, the ten are:They should listen to me.
In a nutshell, the ten are:And so we've got a couple of distortions going on there.
In a nutshell, the ten are:One is this mental filter, a distortion, and the second is the should statement.
In a nutshell, the ten are:They should be listening to me.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Then it's really about reframing things and looking and say, okay,
In a nutshell, the ten are:what's a more rational response or a way to reframe that automatic thought.
In a nutshell, the ten are:A response might be like, there might be a lot of other things going on
In a nutshell, the ten are:for that patient right now and while I'd liked this patient, do their
In a nutshell, the ten are:exercises, it's really their decision at the end of the day and it might
In a nutshell, the ten are:be a good idea to actually talk about how to move forward with this patient.
In a nutshell, the ten are:That's one example of how to go through the triple column technique.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Another example, related to this situation, you might have the
In a nutshell, the ten are:thought " I must not be a very good therapist if my patient can't even
In a nutshell, the ten are:do a few exercises every week."
In a nutshell, the ten are:Again, what we're doing here is we have this emotional reasoning distortion and
In a nutshell, the ten are:we're also overgeneralizing things by thinking that I'm not a good therapist
In a nutshell, the ten are:because of the actions of a patient.
In a nutshell, the ten are:So a more rational response that we can reframe things is it's
In a nutshell, the ten are:not fair for me to make a judgment about myself because of something
In a nutshell, the ten are:that is another person's decision.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Another statement alongside that might be, there's so much that
In a nutshell, the ten are:goes into being a good therapist.
In a nutshell, the ten are:It's important not to put so much weight on this one
In a nutshell, the ten are:particular patient circumstance.
In a nutshell, the ten are:It really can be helpful to get this down on paper so you can actually see things
In a nutshell, the ten are:more clearly and not just have these thoughts running around in your head.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Now sometimes you're going to have a situation where you still don't really
In a nutshell, the ten are:understand the thoughts that you have behind the feelings you're experiencing.
In a nutshell, the ten are:A simple solution that he outlined in this book is the
In a nutshell, the ten are:idea of drawing a stick figure.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Then what you do is you ask yourself, what's making the stick figure unhappy.
In a nutshell, the ten are:I know it sounds ridiculous but I've done it and I promise you,
In a nutshell, the ten are:it actually is really effective.
In a nutshell, the ten are:It's a really good way to go a little deeper with things.
In a nutshell, the ten are:All right to wrap up today's episode.
In a nutshell, the ten are:I want to just briefly review what I just talked about.
In a nutshell, the ten are:First off, it's really helpful to understand and listen to what's going
In a nutshell, the ten are:on in your body when you're dealing with challenging situations in your workday.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Really starting to tease out how you respond to stress will start to
In a nutshell, the ten are:give you a signal in terms of what you should be paying attention to.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Then you want to think about identifying the distortions in your thinking that
In a nutshell, the ten are:may be contributing to some of the emotions that you're feeling that are
In a nutshell, the ten are:leaving you more in a place of discomfort than in a place of comfort in your work
In a nutshell, the ten are:day and the cognitive triangle is a really helpful framework to understand
In a nutshell, the ten are:how thoughts influence emotions, which influence behaviors and actions.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Using the four step process that Dr.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Burns has talked about, it's something that you can actually look through
In a nutshell, the ten are:in more detail in my blog post.
In a nutshell, the ten are:You can then look at how to start to work through these things so you
In a nutshell, the ten are:can respond more appropriately in the future, which is going to allow
In a nutshell, the ten are:you to be more clinically agile in those challenging clinical situations.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Thanks for hanging out with me today and hearing about how to
In a nutshell, the ten are:improve your clinical performance.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Make sure to subscribe on iTunes or Spotify to stay up
In a nutshell, the ten are:to date on future episodes.
In a nutshell, the ten are:If you enjoy this episode, I truly appreciate you leaving a review on iTunes.
In a nutshell, the ten are:Here's to less frustration, more flow and better clinical results till next time.
