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Dear Alison You wrote (edited): >The orthopaedics department at my hospital is looking at starting an evening clinic for patients under the age of 40 >The idea is being led / pushed by the nurse practitioner/theatre nurse manager who is looking at 12 patients being seen in a 2 hour clinic! >- Problem number 1! >I explained that for an adequate physiotherapy assessment you would be looking at more like 30 minutes per patient than 10mins. Life is full of compromise! You don't want to lose this golden opportunity, so you will need to compromise your standards and perhaps refine and speed up your assessments. I ran a similar service a number of years ago, and yes, it was full-on for the 2 hour period! However, you should be competent to quickly establish wether you have something to offer or not. Once this is made you can organize an appointment to further investigate and assess the knee at your leisure. Once you have established yourself as a worthy and necessary part of the team, then slowly try introducing the idea of extending the clinic hours to allow better on the spot assessments. >The surgeon and nurse practitioner have now therefore decided to run without physiotherapy support (the lead surgeon is one whose main >interest is in spinal problems! Problem number 2!!) This is not a problem unless you make it one. Surgeons are trained in knees as well as spines. It just happens that this one has an interest in spines. The problem is for him, to be competent enough to preform his work. You have enough to sort out in your area already so I wouldn't concern yourself here at the moment. Cross those bridges when you come to them. Hope this is of some help. Cheers ************************************************* Erik Dombroski AIT to be AUT from 2000, School Of Physiotherapy, Email: [log in to unmask] URL: http://www.ait.ac.nz/depts/physio/ ************************************************** %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%