Blind and partially sighted physiotherapy in the United Kingdom. A century of development, success and challenge. Will it still belong?

Background:In 2019 the Association of Visually Impaired Chartered Physiotherapists, originally the Association of Blind Certificated Masseurs, celebrated the centenary of its formation and becoming the first ever Specific Interest Group admitted to the Incorporated Society of Trained Masseuses which, later in the 20th century, became the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. These landmarks motivated the author to research for this chronological, descriptive, narrative review of the history of blind physiotherapy and its contribution to physiotherapy in the United Kingdom. Purpose:The early training and practice of massage by blind practitioners, the organizational milestones in mainstream and blind physiotherapy and the inter-relationship between the two is considered. Key developments, challenges, innovations and opportunities throughout the history are reviewed including the impact of World War 1 and contribution of blind physiotherapy to the profession. Conclusion:Significant changes in physiotherapy educational and training arrangements for blind students and changes in physiotherapy practice generally over the last four decades engender serious questions about whether blind physiotherapy will still "belong", despite the increasing aspiration within society toward acceptance of diversity and inclusion. The author challenges the profession about whether it will facilitate blind physiotherapy to continue making its valuable contribution and be included. Will it still "belong?"

On being a pathologist: a pathway to pathology practice; the added value of supplemental vocational training and mentoring in college and medical school.

Traditionally, vocational training and liberal arts (and premedical) curricula have been separate education tracks. This personal profile describes a program that evolved from the partial fusion of vocational training and a premedical education track. My personal health issue, visual impairment, which presumably resulted as a complication of congenital toxoplasmosis, hampered my ability to read in grammar school and necessitated my placement in remedial reading classes until eighth grade. My father created an independent home-based vocational training program that ran in parallel to my traditional school education all the way through college. In this case study, I provide an overview of this hybrid education program, which we refer to as the Vocational Training/Medical College Curriculum of the Future (VTMC). This term implies that the education of a student from K-12 school through medical college is a continuum. I find it useful to conceptualize a single education continuum beginning with vocational training and ending with medical education, with a large overlap area in the middle. In this paper, I describe a set of my work experiences that leveraged and reinforced my didactic education experiences. Mentors who supported aspects of the VTMC program have included a college president, a US Congressman, a Nobel Laureate, and a Massachusetts General Hospital leader in academic pathology. Elements of this innovative VTMC program have been used in K-12 public schools and in nonmedical graduate school programs.

Sir William Wilde and provision for the blind in nineteenth-century Ireland.

As Assistant Commissioner for the Census of Ireland Sir William Wilde worked as an early epidemiologist, providing information regarding the deaf-and-dumb and the blind in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland. As a social agitator he focussed the attention of the authorities to the plight of the blind and their inability to earn a living and support themselves. This paper highlights his contribution to the provision for the blind in Ireland.