Who Gets the Best Care?

Best Care

Do professional athletes always get the “best care,” they are the “best athletes” so they should right? Well, that might depend on how someone defines “best care.” Many of the therapists that read this blog on a regular basis might question the “best” portion behind some of the “care” delivered to our athletes that so many in our culture hold to such a high degree. This was on full display at the Olympics last year with all the cupping hickie marks left on the athletes.

Unfortunately, many people in our culture believe in a false assumption that the best athletes always get the best healthcare. Which lately seems to be coming into question (see Tiger Woods and Steve Kerr). Do not get me wrong, there are some great therapist delivering excellent care for professional athletes. However, just because someone works with a professional athlete does not mean they are a great therapist and thus delivering the best care. Yet look at how often we hear individuals that work with professional athletes quickly tout this point when they are speaking publicly or on social media (i.e. “Well, in my work with getting professional athletes back into competition...”) Why don’t we hear therapist boast about their work with what our culture would call the more common individual, “Well, in my work with getting the factory worker back to work…”. Interestingly we probably hear the opposite, “Well I just work with factory workers, so I don’t have the expertise of those that work with professional athletes.” Whether it is intentional or not, it may be a bit of an “appeal to authority” regarding their expert opinion when someone name drops that they work with professional athletes. I wish we could all understand that just because someone works with professional athletes that alone does not make them an expert. I would not disagree that getting a high-level athlete back to performing at a high level can require some expertise, but does it require more expertise then getting the factory worker back to work? In some ways, it could be argued that getting the factory worker back to work is, dare I say, more challenging and requires an even higher level of expertise in some areas.

Unfortunately, our culture puts our sporting heroes on a high pedestal and many dream of being like them or providing care for them. Enough so that there was a commercial accompanied by a song bold enough to flat out say “Be like Mike.” When it comes to being like them not only do people want to dress and use the same equipment as them, but they want to get the same health care as them. It must have been the cupping that made Michael Phelps win a few more gold medals, not the fact that he is just a more genetically gifted and harder working individual than others. Doesn’t this speak to so many of our cultural woes? We want a quick and easy magical fix, not the reality of hard work and realistic expectations.

The truth is, sadly, it is not just the patients that fall victim to this, many therapist have a belief that there must be a magical quick and easy treatment technique to fix all their patients. The thought of pro athletes are getting it so it must be great, can easily slip into a therapist’s thinking. In addition, maybe it is when someone reads the testimony about a treatment that got someone better when all other regular treatments failed. This surely must be the magic treatment that needs to be in the toolbox to deliver the best care. Many therapist tend to avoid the more realistic expectation that some patients may not get 100% better, definitely not in one or two treatments, and it will take the hard work of the knowledge of the evidence and motivation of the patient through the hard work of therapy to get a good outcome over a realistic time-period.

I often wonder if pro athletes only got evidence-based care wrapped up with realistic expectations that focused on hard work, if we could redefine what “best care” really might be. Because there are some factory workers out there getting this level of care from their therapist and not realizing they get better care then some professional athletes do.

What Say You?

via Dr. Kory Zimney

edit: My thoughts on this....  

Many PTs express an interest in treating "athletes" but there are too many PTs and not enough "athletes." What they really mean is, "I want to work with motivated individuals." I've worked with plenty of athletes at all levels;  they can cancel, no-show, have equipment that is falling apart (Olympic hopeful with heel falling off his last), and be just as non-compliant as your "normal" patient. Everyone deserves the best care, and the bell curve normally means athletes often get care that may less than what they need.

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