Male PT’s Vs female pt!

In my Singapore “rural” prac I had a 14year old female pt who’d come in with a referral for an ongoing knee pain for the last 6 mts following a volleyball game and also for general strengthening program. At the time of my initial assessment I had my pt, her mother and my male PT supervisor sitting in the same area with me. As I began to question my pt I began to get the feeling that she didn’t really want to be at physio and gave me one word answers. So it was really difficult to identify what the problem might be and I must admit it did frustrate me a little! My supervisor also tried asking questions pertaining to her injury but she was still pretty uncommunicative. So it was decided that I go straight into an objective assessment. While doing all my knee assessments I didn’t really find anything wrong with the knee other than the fact she tended to tense up at times!. I felt like I was going nowhere with her so I asked my supervisor to have a go and see if I was missing any important info out!. The minute he put his hands on her she tensed up so much it was interesting to notice!. I was just wondering what was wrong with this girl and felt like I was wasting time treating her as she didn’t seem any bit interested to be here. But my supervisor on the other hand picked up this signal and immediately asked her if she was uncomfortable with him assessing her and if she would prefer a female physio with her next assessment. The patient immediately said yes! So it was decided that we would just get her walking on the treadmill and her next appointment will be with a female PT who would conduct a more detailed assessment. My supervisor left the room with the pt’s mother and I continued to monitor the pt while she was on the treadmill. I began to generally chat to her and to my amusement she began chatting to me so easily and opening up more about her injury! I took all the info she subjectively gave me and documented it in her notes so as the next therapist could have a brief handover.

From this prac I have learnt that we should pick up behaviour patterns of pts while we are assessing them, and it may demonstrate what they are feeling at that particular time hence influencing my approach to treating them. As a physio we should not undermine ourselves and look at possible factors that may also influence the outcome of treatment. We are all about team effort and if we ever have a situation like this be open and seek help from other physio’s as they may be able to assist with any problems.