Welcome to another episode of the Words Matter Podcast. This is an impromptu podcast given that the world is in the grip of the COVID19 pandemic, and we are all having to adjust to new ways of living, thinking and being- including how we practice as clinicians.

Dr Oliver Thomson speaks with osteopath and  David Hohenshurz-Schmidt, an osteopath and PhD student in Pain Research, about how communication skills have now been thrust into the forefront of musculoskeletal and MT practice, given that we are now unable to touch their patients due to the pandemic.

In this episode they spoke about the shift in skills necessary for manual therapists and MSK clinicians to conduct appointments remotely either online or via telephone, and thee requires a change in how clinicians (and patients) conceptualise and see value in all different aspects of the clinical practice, such as the nature of ‘treatment’, their therapeutic role and their professional identity.

David is an osteopath and graduate of the University College of Osteopathy (UCO) in London, and he’s also currently in private clinical practice. He completed his MSc in Neuroscience from King's College London, where he focused on pain research using fMRI. He published his MSc research in Frontiers in Neuroscience Journal, not a bad start to a research career! See here for the full paper)

He’s currently in the midst of a PhD at Imperial College London, where he’s part of the pain research group (lead by Prof. Andrew Rice here) investigating methods to improve how we assess effectiveness of non-drug, non-surgical therapies for pain, including manual therapies, CBT, body-mind therapies, acupuncture. Moe about David's research here.

David and colleagues at UCO have developed a free webinar (see here) to offer advice and guidance for osteopaths and all MSK clinicians to move their clinical work remotely. It's a great resource and I found it extremely helpful for my own transition online.

You can reach David on Twitter at @davidhosch

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