The first CPN face-to-face meeting since COVID

The Critical Physiotherapy Colloquium in the Arctic

From left to right: Robert Richter, Tone Dahl-Michelsen, Randi Sviland, Dave Nicholls, Birgitte Ahlsen, Line Blixt, Joost van Wijchen, Heidi Höppner, Filip Maric, Tobba Therkildsen Sudmann, Louise Søgaard Hansen, Anne Gretland, Wenche Bjorbækmo, Anna Ilona Rajala. Not in the photo but also at the first day of the Colloquium were Marianne Eliassen and Liris Smith.

Since Sunday night (11th September) and on till Wednesday morning (14th) a group of CPN members have been meeting in the beautiful Norwegian coastal village of Sommarøy for the first international CPN Colloquium since COVID.

Thanks to the generous support of the UiT Healthcare Professional Practice Research Group and the incredible convening skills of Filip Maric, we’ve been workshopping the questions of how can we help people envisage a radically alternative future to contemporary physiotherapy.

Three teams have been developing games and playing seriously with what might be possible for us today and into the future.

A card game focusing on health inequalities designed for first-year physiotherapy students using found objects from around the hotel.

We’ve interspersed the three days with critically reflective activities as prompts to draw out what we feel needs to be in any radically alternative future, and tried to create a safe space for what might normally be impossible to contemplate.

This all sounds very earnest, but first and foremost this has been a long-overdue meeting of friends who in some cases haven’t seen each other for more than five years.

What’s already evident from this colloquium is that we’ve generated a lot of ‘data’ that will need time to process. Hopefully, we’ll find some ways of sharing it with you as we aggregate and analyse it in the weeks to come.

It’s also clear that none of us need convincing that change in physiotherapy is now inevitable, but also necessary. What we’ve been grappling with is the shape we’d like that reform to take and how to make it happen.

It would be all too easy to become professionally defensive and let this incredible moment slip through our fingers. But none of us want that.

Physiotherapy, but not as you know it.

So it’s been quite an emotional family reunion here, and the stunningly beautiful backdrop of Northern Norway has given us all a sense of gratitude and awe for what might be possible in the years to come.

“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done” - Alan Turing