Experiences of Student Circus Arts Performers Undertaking a Shoulder Rehabilitation Program Via Telehealth Consultation During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the subjective experiences of student circus arts performers with atraumatic shoulder instability undertaking a 12-week shoulder rehabilitation program during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, in Melbourne, Australia. METHODS: Using a qualitative design, 14 circus arts students from the National Institute of Circus Arts (Australia) were individually interviewed via teleconsultation. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using inductive thematic analysis. RESULTS: Five overarching themes were identified: (i) impact (physical and mental), (ii) opportunity, (iii) developing routine, (iv) client-therapist relationship, and (v) transformation. All participants reported positive physical changes to their shoulder including increases in strength, stability, range of motion, less pain, "clicking" and "clunking," improved posture, muscle memory, as well as carry-over to functional circus activities. The pandemic's mental impact varied across the cohort, with positive and negative experiences described in relation to cognitive, social, and affective factors. Most performers felt the pandemic provided an opportunity to focus on rehabilitation of their shoulder. The program effects were also underpinned by positive client-therapist relationships and a progressive transformation of learning where students gained knowledge of their condition, developed tools to manage their current shoulder impairment, and learned how to apply this new knowledge to future management of their condition. CONCLUSION: A shoulder exercise intervention delivered via teleconsultation during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in subjective reports of positive physical changes to the participants' shoulder health complaint. This was facilitated through client-physiotherapist relationships, providing structure during uncertain times, and by providing education to help in understanding their condition and its future management.

'There's so much to it': the ways physiotherapy students and recent graduates experience practice.

Health science courses aim to prepare students for the demands of their chosen profession by learning ways appropriate to that profession and the contexts they will work and live in. Expectations of what students should learn become re-contextualised and translated into entry-level curriculum, with students operating as a connection between what is intended and enacted in curriculum, and required in the real world. Drawing on phenomenology, this paper explores how students understand practice-the collective, purposeful knowing, doing and being of a community-in entry-level physiotherapy programs. Ways of thinking and practising (WTP)-a framework attentive to the distinctive nature of a discipline, its values, philosophies and world-view (McCune and Hounsell in High Educ 49(3):255-289, 2005)-provides the conceptual lens. Six themes describing how students see the WTP of physiotherapy practice emerged from the analysis: discovery of new knowledge; problem solving client related contexts; adopting a systems based approach to the body; contributing to a positive therapeutic alliance; developing a sense of self and the profession; and the organisation of the workforce. The study produces knowledge about practice by focusing on physiotherapy students' experiences of disciplinary learning. Including students in educational research in this way is an approach that can help students realise their potential as part of a community of practice.