How we celebrated World AS Day
By Irwin Lim, Rheumatologist
I woke up on Friday with a sore, hoarse voice. By the time, I reached work, it was worse and after my morning list of patients, I hardly had a voice. This was going to be a problem given I was due to introduce and present at the AS You Can See It Seminar on Saturday, World Ankylosing Spondylitis Day.
People are kind and many remedies were suggested, but in the end, I resorted to the brute force of potent medication. I’m actually not recommending this to any of you which is why I’m not going to tell you the secret formula. I was desperate to find a voice.
Many people gathered in Brisbane that Friday night to set things up. Conference organisers, IT & stage crew, our pharmaceutical industry colleagues, doctors, Roberto Russo and myself.
Saturday morning was glorious. Sunny and warm. The venue was by the water with a great view.
The physiotherapists streamed in and we started at 9am with Professor Matthew Brown, the chairperson for an on-site audience of over 100 Queensland-based physiotherapists. There was a simultaneous seminar in Hobart and a webinar of the event with over 350 participants.
Our contribution to World Ankylosing Spondylitis Day kicked off. I found a voice. I explained the history and reason for the AS You Can See It Seminar series and wanted to leave our physiotherapists with one clear message. That they matter. And what a physiotherapist does, matters immensely to the patients they come in contact with.
This day to raise awareness and improve diagnosis and treatment for patients suffering from diseases such as Ankylosing Spondylitis, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Psoriatic Arthritis went smoothly.
We were kept up-to-date with the keynote speech by Professor Brown, we learned about the model-of-care for Ankylosing Spondylitis including a rheumatology nurse, Linda Bradbury & a dedicated physiotherapist, Margaret Lewington & we were reminded of the On-Line learning modules created to further improve physiotherapy learning by Karen Howard.
We received an update on rheumatoid arthritis by Dr Simon Lam, an overview of medical therapies by Dr Phillip Robinson, a tour of musculoskeletal radiology by Dr Nivene Saad. We were treated to two entertaining talks from Dr Roberto Russo on enthesopathy and nuclear medicine imaging. I also did my limited impersonation of Steve Jobs in trying to highlight the ipad as a very useful tool for physiotherapy practice, demonstrating a working version of iAnkylosing Spondylitis (an app we hope will be available on itunes later this year).
But perhaps, the most important sessions, were the ones that described the patients experience. We were shown 2 video messages and were fortunate enough to have 2 local patients attend to describe the trials and tribulations of living with Ankylosing Spondylitis, the frustration of delayed diagnosis, and the benefits of effective therapy. The day ended with a special guest, Mitch Crews. He described his pain & frustration prior to being diagnosed with the disease & commencement of TNF-inhibitor therapy. With treatment, he has managed to return to surfing and is now one of Australia’s top surfers.
From the early feedback, the seminar was well received.
After 3 seminars, between February 20th and May 7th, we have reached out to a 1000 physiotherapists. If each of those physiotherapists just diagnoses 1 extra patient suffering from inflammatory rheumatic disease in their working life, we would have made a bigger impact on people’s lives than what each of us could probably have achieved individually.
And that’s just the start. The potential for more good is there. We hope to continue this conversation between rheumatologists, nurses, pharma, physiotherapists and patients.
Dr Irwin Lim is a rheumatologist and a director of BJC Health.
BJC Health provides a connected care multidisciplinary team philosophy to deliver positive lifestyle outcomes through a holistic approach to those with degenerative & inflammatory arthritis, tendon injury and lifestyle diseases. Our clinics are located in Parramatta, Chatswood and Brookvale. Contact us.
This blog focuses on arthritis-related diseases, healthcare in general, and our Connected Care philosophy.
Thank you Irwin. i was one of the Adelaide attendees of the earlier seminar day and what an achievement-a thousand physiotherapists aware of the critical early recognition and referral .
Adelaide celebrated with 75 allied health practicioners attending an Arthritis SA seminar on Pain and an update on strategies from a rheumatologist (Sam Whittle ),podiatrist,O.T, orthopaedist on the Caledonian knee replacement pain reduction protocol(Chris Wilson) and a brilliant ,articulate and moving talk from the patient perspective from Colette Smith,now a Board Member on Arhritis SA
who was diagnosed with RA at seventeen and nowforty two ,she gives excellent dot point summaries of what she and all patients should get from a committed and communicative rheumotologist and allied health practicioner.
Dr .Suzanne McKay, the new Development Officer at arthritis SA suzanne.mckay@arthritissa.org.au should be able to forward this.If you can get her to speak she is moving and inspirational.
Great to here the Seminars were so well attended.
Glad you enjoyed the seminar. We’re now trying to work out how we continue to cultivate relationships between rheumatologists & physiotherapists to foster further education & earlier detection of these inflammatory rheumatic diseases. Some sort of social media Physiotherapy-Rheumatology site to allow discussion & specific (but deidentified) questions. Is this something you think physios would be interested in?
A Physiotherapy-Rheumatology discussion site would be an excellent initiative.Nothing though beats face to face and multi-disciplinary treatment of patients as your clinic facilitates and in Adelaide these practices are small and any physio-rheumotologist combined care is most developed within the Extended Scope Model of Public Outpatient Clinics . Attending the ARA Conference in Brisbane was a great opportunity to network with international and interstate Rheumatologists.
I sat next to an 80 year old Victorian based Rheumatologist who forged connections with Physiotherapists back in the 1960′s and was looked upon with great suspicion by his Medical colleagues then.How things have changed.I praise the ARA for facilitating this Allied Health communication and I would expect Physios would embrace any social media site aiding these connections.
I was at the ARA. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet you. Btw, the AS You See It seminars have little to do with the ARA. BJC Health proposed the seminars & found support from Abbott pharmaceuticals. Even, the APA were initially uninterested, but the APA have now come onboard given the success.
Face to face would of course be best but difficult to institute on a large scale & would be very costly, both in time & resources. We’ll keep thinking about ways to facilitate this.
For open disclosure, I work at BJC Health. In my 14 years as physiotherapist, I cannot recall such an initiative by a member of the medical profession for the recognition and targeting of physiotherapists as key players in the management of a condition. I mean: the amount of planning, organisation and collaboration is staggering – all for the education of physiotherapists and the elevation of the profile of this condition. Speaking with Irwin today, it seems the APA are now willing to get behind this push for the rheumatological aspect of our profession. The ball is rolling! I am really excited to work with such innovative, leading, and collegial professionals, and am personally enthused to strive for newer heights. Well done Irwin.