Why crowdsourcing treatment advice almost never works
It’s exhausting when you don’t have a system to work within. When every patient that comes in is like starting over and not knowing what to do. Every treatment is guesswork and not knowing if something will work, or why it did one time and not another. Or worse yet, why what you’ve used before flared up this new patient.
Too often practitioners work on assumptions or guessing. They base treatment on what worked for a past patient, or because a colleague said it worked on their patient.
And much of these recommendations come from Crowdsourcing for treatment advice on social media. I started a group that has over 7500 members. But I had to get away from it.
The issue is, absent using a working system, crowdsourcing is ineffectual at best, and reckless at worse. It was the same thing over and over. Tons of people hopping in offering random suggestions absent any real case history, and it was all piecemeal. It was unhelpful and only confused the practitioner who posted the original question even more. The practitioner wasn’t taught how to fish. They were just fed temporarily. But even worse, the fish wasn’t even edible. (Ok enough analogies)
Can you imagine if your patient knew you were trying some random technique because another practitioner offered advice on Facebook?! When you think about it that way it’s pretty crazy.
But asking for advice CAN be helpful when it’s done in a certain way. Asking questions on a forum is much more valuable when it’s within a system and we’re speaking the same language. You can build within a system. You can make sense of the patient when you have a base of knowledge to work from. When someone posts a history of the patient, better advice can be offered. This also helps practitioners grow and not just have a crutch. I want practitioners to ask questions and learn more than just “here try this”. It’s much better to know the why and empower them to be more self sufficient…to grow into getting the answers themselves and knowing how to find them. Offering treatment advice is much more profound in this way.
A forum works much better this way and it works extremely well on our Locals community, where EXSTORE is the system that everyone works under. Its just a more responsible - and very effective - way of running a forum.
Size doesn’t matter. Having a smaller more effective community is better. The community continues to grow, but not just for the sake of growth.
If you treat patients with plantar fasciitis, this video is worth your time. Anthony breaks it down with key treatment targets you might be missing.
Register for the next EXSTORE course or book a refresher if you need to brush up:
https://aseseminars.com/event/the-exstore-orthopedic-system-for-dry-needlers
@Exstoreman @JoshuaSwart My regular tennis patient said:
I tore my plantar again last Saturday. Same foot, same feeling. Haven't gone to doc or gotten mri but feel exactly the same. Unfortunately they can't see me til Tuesday 2:45 and then imaging will come after...want me to push out til I know more?
- Should I wait for her to get an MRI to confirm that her plantar fascia or achilles tendon was torn before I treat her, or should I just treat her before that imaging appointment? Thank you! Sarrah
@JoshuaSwart I always hear about people niching down but also writing articles to discuss their niche.
Treating MSK and there are many conditions that fall under that category.
Would you say there are major categories and minor categories of niching?
What articles are essential for a MSK EXSTORE practitioner? What image creation is essential?
What articles do you feel are needed for promoting SEO of a website geared towards MSK for higher ranking over time so the algorithm picks up on your niching down by article promotion?
I have been rewriting a few articles from my website builder so they sound less mysticism and more scientific.
If there is a best scripted / article for talking about a topic then could there be collaboration of what is best said rather than us paying ghost writers separately? Most of the information seems the same but in slightly different words. Why not have a standardized article for EXSTORE practitioners so we can set a standard on what practitioners should know ...
Kenny Easley, Hall of Fame defensive back in the NFL passed away yesterday at the age of 66. He had to retire retire early because team doctors were giving him an absurd amount of nonsteroidal inflammatory drugs, which caused him to go into kidney failure and retire before the age of 30. Check out this excerpt of a New York Times article based on a piece written in a journal back in 2002. It’s important for athletes at all levels to have their own physicians and healthcare professionals so that they can act independently in the best interests of the athlete.
