2/18 鄭悅承老師演講

PT100 陳登為

今天很幸運能聽到鄭老師的演講，老師以物理治療師的身分，竟然能夠擔任復健科的主任！著實讓我印象深刻！又從他的精彩演講內容中，知道他是一個公司集團的執行長，底下員工數百名，我真的覺得他是我所能親眼見到，並且能面對面談話中數一數二的人物，只可惜演講的時間太少，能解答的時間也太少，難怪跟巴菲特吃一餐飯價值要100萬美金！還好我們的胡老師面子大可以請到他到我們系上演講，希望下次有機會能再次聽到他的聲音！

PT100 王勝偉

Medical Emergency: Running Business?

To don the sacred white robe and enter a grand hospital as a clinical practitioner is every medical students’ dream. That fantasy lasted for years until teacher Cheng’s speech cracked out the bitterness of reality and shattered that very dream into pieces, making it becoming a “dream” forever. The inequality and harsh conditions to physical therapists in practice do exist. Unable to directly access patients, unfair reimbursements, lack of opportunity to join high level governmental meetings for policy decisions… and the list goes on.

Hearing all of this made me think of physical therapy as a desperate road to the future. However, instead of ceasing the speech here leaving us with a closed door, teacher Cheng spoke further and opened a window, a window probably leading us into an even greater boulevard! He shared humbly with us his personal successful experience in managing his own clinic and company.

The idea originated from managing the Division of Rehabilitation Medicine of Country Hospital. The hospital was categorized as an open system type, so each department had to keep its own budget and make ends meet. Because of this model, teacher Cheng thought to himself that “Why not we physical therapists go out and do our practice in a freer place, and enjoy the rights of independent practicing?” And thus the bumping road led on.

As teacher Cheng said, to set up a clinic is not as simple as it seems. Every aspect has to be evaluated thoroughly just like what we do with our patients, except that the patient gives you feedback but the business thing requires you to calculate each and every cost and payments your own. So to me, that sounded like everything to be done before the opening ceremony. I mean literally everything, from the salary and insurance of employments, which in this case are therapists, utility bills, consumables, laundry fee, administration costs, you name it.

After years of effort, finally teacher Cheng owns two clinics in the downtown in Taipei. He is also the CEO of two companies and two associations. Moreover, he is now pulling strings to make success a true physical therapy clinic that embodies the value of physical therapist. Not like ordinary ones that only do electrical stimulation or lumbar traction routinely, but emphasizes and promotes what capable physical therapists can do.

Teacher Cheng’s lecture inspired me deeply. Not just because of the tale about a then therapist transformed into a successful leader, CEO. But, also about the essence of the story that as a therapist in the future, I can do more than work under someone’s order but treat patients independently. The fact that I’m a medical practitioner doesn’t confine me to clinical practice only, instead, I can manage my own clinic or create my own working environment to amplify my strengths to maximum!

(作者係PT100大學部學生)