On June 5th-7th NAIOMT held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) at Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, WA. The meeting was a rousing success with most of the faculty and a good percentage of the site coordinators in attendance.

I recently asked three of our faculty the following questions:
Q1: What is one of the most common errors you see candidates make in the NAIOMT Oral Practical Examination?
Q2: What common characteristics have you seen in the strongest candidates?


Here are their answers:
Brian Macks, NAIOMT Clinical Fellowship Instructor
A1: The foundational level 1 information continues to challenge candidates at times. A failure to properly review systems and the inability to recognize what is not appropriate for physical therapy are common errors for examination candidates.

A2: A prepared examination candidate is a relaxed examination candidate. Begin preparing early for the exam. Have a plan to cover the material in smaller pieces over that time period. It is immediately obvious if the techniques are being used regularly. If you find yourself not seeing certain patients to use particular techniques regularly, set yourself up to do all those techniques once weekly with a colleague.

Bill Temes, NAIOMT Faculty
A1: There seems to be a lack of breadth of knowledge in differential diagnosis/medical screening. There appears to be lack of flow from scan to selection of appropriate biomechanical exam.

A2: Breadth of knowledge regarding variety of disease states that may mimic mechanical pain. Understand the sequencing of the exam process. Appropriate clinical decision-making based on examination findings - comfortable with case scenarios format.

Gail Molloy, NAIOMT Senior Faculty
A1: Always clarify the question if you do not understand - don’t try to answer something you are unclear about. Also, don’t over answer a question by going into extra information if you are not prepared for the examiner to follow you down that rabbit hole.

A2: Obviously using the techniques in a clinical setting. This is apparent by the ease of the set up, the handling of the patient and the finesse of the technique. We want candidates who are not just academically smart but also clinically skilled.

Happy Studies!
Heather
Exam Coordinator

John completed this case report as part of his fellowship requirements with NAIOMT. John is not only a fellowship program graduate he is also a clinical fellowship instructor. Please see the abstract below as well as the link for the full article. Congratulation John!

ABSTRACT: A proposed mechanism for the persistence of low back pain due to clinical instability is a decrease in control of local spinal musculature, more specifically decreased recruitment of multifidus. Altered segmental mechanoreceptor input has been proposed as a contributing factor responsible for a decrease in local muscle recruitment. In this case report, immediate changes in the recruitment of the deep multifidus following manipulation were examined using needle EMG and isometric testing of trunk rotational force. Trunk rotational force appeared to improve while the multifidus demonstrated a decrease in activity as measured by needle EMG. No specific conclusions can be drawn from this report; however, the results do suggest that immediate multifidus function may be influenced with manipulation, resulting in improved muscular control of the trunk.

To read the full article http://jmmtonline.com/documents/v17n1/tunnell.pdf