Political Correctness

Whilst on international placement in Cambodia part of our role as students was facilitating a group of local Khmer physiotherapists that were studying a two week course – advanced certificate in musculoskeletal physiotherapy. This was a group of maybe 20 qualified Cambodian physiotherapists. Their physiotherapy course is obviously a lot different from what we have learned here in Australia. Their level of understanding is no where near that of what we have obtained from our years studying, but that is a whole other issue. The course was basically set up and run through a Singapore hospital or the Singaporean government as far as I know. There was a Singaporean physio (with post grad qualifications) who presented topics on the elbow, wrist, and hand, and Michelle, who we all know, who presented topics on the shoulder. Which brings me to issue I wish to discuss.

I honestly feel as though I could have done a better job in presenting the topics. It was blatantly clear once this lady started talking that she hadn’t put a lot of thought into what she was doing. Firstly the whole series of lectures were poorly structured. Secondly, and of more concern was the content of what she was delivering. She aimed her lectures at far too high a level of knowledge for the Khmer physios. It was obvious that they were struggling with what she was saying, yet she continued to cover topics as if she was lecturing back home. Also apart from the content being too challenging for the students, she also discussed completely irrelevant information that simply confused them. It was extremely frustrating watching this and not being able to do anything, watching the students struggle and take little in. The whole thing could have been far more effective for all if she thought a little more about what she was doing before, or even during the lectures.

The next frustrating thing was the fact that when she was delivering the lectures she simply rambled on at great lengths before pausing for the translator to translate. The poor bloke was struggling to recall and translate everything that she was saying, she was aware of this as he made it abundantly clear through not and his body language, but also as he was constantly having to ask her to repeat parts of what she had said. Yet she did not change her lecturing techniques.

But wait there’s more. Apart from confusing the hell out of the students, the ones who actually did follow what was going on soon found themselves pondering because every now and then this lady, a post-grad I’ll reiterate, contradicted herself or made blatant fundamental errors in what she was saying.

Okay, sorry for the rant but it was extremely frustrating for me. But here is the worst part. The students got a practical exam at the end of the course. This was kind of loosely, very loosely similar to our ospes. The question this lady had written stated something along the lines of – the patient has grade 2 dorsiflexors, demonstrate 1 exercise to increase dorsiflexor strength. That question was at an appropriate level for the students..but not really for the examiner. When the students, and I mean every one of them, came out and started to do a strengthening exercise for a person with a grade 2 dorsiflexor, she confused the hell out of them and said it was wrong and made them try to do a grade 3 exercise for the patient.

Now the students all knew different grade 2 and 3 exercises that they could have done, but as the question said to do a grade 2 exercise, when the examiner tried to get them to do a grade 3 exercise (without calling it a grade 3 – she tried to get them to figure it out) they all just drew blanks. I was acting as patient and it was obvious that they all knew what she intended to examine, however, her communication with them was so poor that no one understood what she was asking of them. Thus they all ran out of time and all the students failed and had to resit the prac. They all finally passed but not after much unnecessary confusion.

The other two students and I discussed with Michelle this ladies communication and lecture skills, as well as her level of knowledge. What were we to do in this situation? Given the situation, that we were invited there by the Singaporeans, it was a rather sensitive issue, and we really couldn’t say much to this lady without offending her. We could subtly drop hints but that was about it. Other than that all we could do was try to clear up any confusion the students had. They would often ask us questions during breaks or prac times and we gladly helped, and with some common sense communication strategies the students understood what they wanted to know.

Michelle restructured her information to ‘correct’ a few things from the previous lecturer in a subtle way. Watching Michelle lecture was great. She was truly professional and well prepared. She structured her content well and aimed it at the appropriate level for the Khmers. Not to mention, it was pretty good to see her talk slowly during a lecture! The students without a doubt learnt far more from Michelle’s couple of days than from the other lady.

So what did I learn from this? Firstly, how lucky we are to have the opportunity to learn what we learn studying at Curtin. Secondly, how good our lecturers actually are. And thirdly, how important it is to use good communication when talking to people with little or no English. It certainly helped me in the way I approached the next couple of weeks working in a children’s surgical centre. Has anyone else been in a similar situation where someone ‘superior’ to them went about things the wrong way, or was clearly wrong yet political correctness meant that you couldn’t do or say anything about it? Or does anyone have any thoughts or tips on my situation?