key: cord-0012649-tnfkzw84
authors: Han, Jia; Wang, Xueqiang; Shen, Xia; Hu, Jia; Zhang, Xin; Tang, Xin; Wang, Hong; Luo, Qinglu; Jiang, Ying; Jiang, Zheng; Yang, Lin; Zhang, Qi; Bai, Yiwen; Wu, Xubo
title: On “Translating COVID-19 Evidence to Maximize Physical Therapists’ Impact and Public Health Response.” Dean E, Jones A, Yu H.P-M., Gosselink R, Skinner M. [Published Online Ahead of Print June 26, 2020] Phys Ther. 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ptj/pzaa115. Implications for Advancing Therapy Education, Practice and Public health in China
date: 2020-07-31
journal: Phys Ther
DOI: 10.1093/ptj/pzaa133
sha: 4271980270906ddcb7a0cc8969ce5966480ae4d7
doc_id: 12649
cord_uid: tnfkzw84

nan

Given that China was the initial epicenter for the COVID-19 pandemic, we read with particular interest the article by Dean and colleagues. 1 There is an urgent need for us to increase the number of physical therapist education programs in order to produce competent practitioners who are especially committed to promoting public health.

Programs at the baccalaureate level with "physical therapy" in the award title were we support structured bridging courses in which generic rehabilitation therapists can enroll to be upskilled to become qualified physical therapists, so that they meet international standards of practice across clinical settings from the critical care to community care.

In Chinese, the word for "crisis" has 2 characters, 危机, "danger" and "opportunity."

Unquestionably, the pandemic is a global crisis; however, we see that there is unlimited opportunity for expediting further development of the physical therapy profession in China. Identifying the challenges and solutions is a step in that direction.

These include the lack of qualified physical therapists with advanced graduate degrees with academic positions who can conduct research relevant to China as well as teach evidence-informed professional physical therapy courses. To help relieve this demand, the CCPTPD has considered sharing teaching resources (staff and teaching and learning materials).

In addition, the pandemic has shed light on the paucity of attention that has been allocated to acute care and the cardiorespiratory curriculum. We have advised physical therapist academic programs to revise their curricula to better align with the urgent demand for physical therapy services in China in light of the pandemic.

Correspondingly, we have actively engaged with clinical placement providers to strengthen the cardiorespiratory component and to enhance students' cardiorespiratory

clinical experience, especially in the critical care setting. Another initiative is tele-physical therapy, which has been reported to be effective across a range of clinical settings and thus is being encouraged during the COVID-19 pandemic. 3 Tele-physical therapy is now being considered for inclusion into our regularly revised physical therapy curricula. Furthermore, we propose that online lectures and seminars 

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