Goodbye, and thank you

How the CPN made me smile again

Early in 2014, I’d become disillusioned with my job at the university. From my earliest student days, I knew I wanted to help craft my profession, so becoming the head of a large physiotherapy teaching department seemed like a dream come true. But it wasn’t.

Having spent the previous six years arguing for a radical new physiotherapy curriculum, I realised I wasn’t patient enough, and skilled enough, to see the job through. And by mid-2014 I was getting tired and irritable.

I can still remember sending the email to the handful of the people I knew around the world who were doing critical work. It couldn’t have been more than 10 people. Did they want to get together for occasional chats, I wondered. I remember thinking at that time that this would be a small group, but a kind group; a group of like-minded souls looking for a chance to speak truth to physio power.

In the email, I casually asked them to send the email to other colleagues if they thought they’d be interested. What happened next was a complete surprise.

Within weeks we had 50 members, then 100, then 200… People were genuinely excited at the prospect of an international group who were trying to say something different about the profession. By the end of 2014, we’d passed 500 members in more than 30 countries. By the end of 2015, the number had doubled.

We gave ourselves a name and formed an Executive, we wrote our beautiful objectives, and Filip Maric gifted us that brilliant tagline that the CPN would be a ‘positive force for an otherwise physiotherapy’. Perfect.

The Exec met at the end of every month, and projects started to roll out. We built a website and began blogging; seven of us around the world wrote an article on connectivity in six weeks, we organised our first CPN international meeting, we ran our first (totally ridiculous) 30 Days of September campaign, and we wrote our first book.

By 2020 we’d settled into a lovely routine of conversation, inspiration, and collaboration. Our membership grew to nearly 1,000 people across more than 60 countries. We added a new six-month-long free course, collaborated on more books and journal articles, and even hosted a focused symposium and our 3rd CPN Salon at the World Physio congress in Cape Town. A few members of our Exec stepped away and new members joined. We were rolling along. And then COVID struck.

Who knows what work would have been like had COVID not happened. What we do know is that for many of us it was a really hard time.

You might not imagine this, but I’m a real introvert. I really don’t like public spectacle. So I was one of those who probably bore out the restrictions of COVID better than most. I was incredibly lucky.

I spent a lot of 2020-22 finishing my book Physiotherapy Otherwise, just in time to start a year-long sabbatical.

You’re supposed to use a sabbatical to think deeply about your work and ferment new ideas, and this year hasn’t let me down. I’ve had a really life-changing year of reading, thinking, more reading, writing, meeting friends around the world, and still more reading.

And sometime in September, during a two-month-long overseas trip, I realised that now was the time to shake things up.

And so I talked to some close friends about my plans and then let everyone know that I was going to step away from the CPN Exec. To be clear, I’ll still be in the CPN (it’s my family), but I won’t be running the network come the end of the year.

My plans are to take what I’ve learned from the CPN to find a bigger critical healthcare community. I’ve been working on a new online forum and testing out different ideas and ways of working. I’ll email you all with all of that when it’s up and running.

My work will always focus on physiotherapy — it’s what I know — but the management of the CPN itself now falls into other peoples’ hands. It will change, shift and grow, just as it has always done.

Before I go though, I really, really want to thank a few people: firstly, the members of the Exec over the last nine years. Such an amazing bunch of people. So generous with their time, so wise, so lovely. And then all of the people who stepped up to help write articles and books, run courses, and travel to meet up. Thank you for your trust and commitment to the cause. And finally to all of the CPN family.

I’ve made so many friends over the last eight years and I’ve been treated to more kindness and hospitality than I can ever repay. Thank you all so much. You gave me my smile back.

Naku te rourou nau te rourou ka ora ai te iwi (a Māori proverb meaning ‘with your basket and my basket the people will thrive’).

With love,

Dave