As I know about difference in PT from my friend

Hello everyone, I am a student who has come from Thailand. This is my third time that I come here, Taiwan, but this time is different from others. I am coming here to study in Ph.D. that may take a long time here. I was here about two months ago. Everything looks so fast. Everything look flows smoothly and not too much hard as I thought. I got many friends in lab and class. They really kind and always give me a hand. I was very impressed. I usually make a conversation with my friends.

The things that I heard from my friend is about physical therapy in Taiwan.They said about PT problem in Taiwan, and I think it same as Thailand. We also got the same problem. Such as, treating a patient or giving some exercises. Patients in Thailand also like passive treatment and lazy to exercise, so sometimes they usually ask for use some modalities with lying on the bed. Moreover, they also misunderstand that treatment must pain or "no pain no gain." In Thailand, patient in other provinces usually suffers between physical therapy and traditional massage or manipulation treatment as a physical therapist is a massager. Others problem, PT in Thailand also have a problem with their salary. Our salary from some hospital or some workplace is not enough. So, they usually have a home-visit case or work overtime in the evening to earn more pay. However, there are just some different, that PT in Thailand can direct access patient. They can handle the patient without a physician order. However, for my experience, I usually found a patient that ever pass physician or other screening as in Taiwan. It very rarely to found patient with a severe condition. Because when the patient got a severe problem, they usually go to the hospital first. If we found first visit patient, we typically ask about the cause of pain. If there are any history or symptom that need to confirm by others screening. We will consult the patient to other professions.

Lastly, I’m not sure that information I understood is all correct or not. I’m not too much fluent in English. So, this is all I know from my friend. I hope that I will learn much more things from Taiwan, our department, and my friends with happiness like this!!! And, everyone has an aim in their life after graduated. Most of us will be a new generation of the physical therapist in their own country. I think we also have the problem in a different way or the same way in each country. I hope that after we graduated from Master’s or Ph.D., we will still keep in touch and sharethe knowledge, or problem with each other and solve the problem together. If possible… ><

(作者係研究生)