Bruce Greenfield

• PhD
• Emory University

Background: Post-professional residency educational programs aim to advance the knowledge and skills of therapists in a clinical specialty area, however, little is known about the process, outcomes, or effectiveness of residency education. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to use narrative as a teaching and learning tool to gain insight int...

Introduction Competency-based education is a proven, effective strategy for developing skilled health care practitioners. The purpose of this study was to reassess the validity and reliability of the Emory University Internship Clinical Evaluation (EUICE) instrument by reassessment of the component behaviors of the curricular competencies (provisio...

Introduction Written narratives are used to develop reflective skills in health care students during clinical education. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of using a framework in narrative writing to facilitate reflection in physical therapy students during their initial short-term clinical experiences. Subjects Each of 20...

Educational research has been labeled as the "hardest science" of all given the challenges of teaching and learning that take place in an environment where there is a mix of social interactions, events, problems coupled with a persistent belief that education depends more on common sense than disciplined knowledge and skill. As a scientific field o...

This perspective article provides a justification, with an overview, for the use of narrative as a pedagogical tool for educators to help physical therapy students, residents and clinicians develop skills of reflection and reflexivity in clinical practice. Narratives is a pedagogical approach that provides a reflective and interpretative framework...

Objective To explore the perceptions of novice physical therapy clinical instructors (CIs) about their interactions and teaching behaviours with physical therapy students. Design A phenomenological approach using semi-structured interviews and a focus group. Participants Six novice physical therapy CIs (less than 2 years as a CI and supervised few...

Rational decision-making and “top down approaches” that use deductive reasoning for making clinical treatment decisions do not address the complexity, ambiguities, uncertainties and unpredictabilities of clinical practice. Contemporary research indicates that expert practitioners draw from multiple methods of clinical reasoning including the use of...

In this essay, we describe phenomenology as a philosophy and methodology that is uniquely suited to aid healthcare professionals to explore and understand the meaning of disability from the perspectives of the patient/client. Emerging in the beginning of the twentieth century as a philosophy for understanding the nature of the world around us, phen...

Ethical issues present a challenge for health care professionals working with athletes of sports teams. Health care professionals-including the team physician, the physical therapist, and the athletic trainer-are faced with the challenge of returning an athlete to competition as quickly as possible but as safely as possible. Conflicts of interest a...

This article questions our basic assumptions and approaches to ethics education in the health professions. Across the health professions, there is increased need for health professionals to carry out their moral duties in individual patient care, as well as collaborate, as part of an interprofessional team that is grounded in a sense of purpose to...

Background and Purpose. In recent years, the development of assistive technologies in rehabilitation has outpaced considered ethical reflection about their application. The use of assistive technologies raises both ethical issues and values conflicts in terms of education, accessibility, and patient/client preferred values, beliefs, and goals. The...

Kaufman's ground-breaking work in the 1980s introduced the phenomenology of disability. In my commentary, I describe phenomenology as a philosophy of understanding the world around us and as a methodology for understanding the lived experiences of patients with life-changing disabilities. Like Kaufman, my focus for the use of phenomenology in healt...

This perspective article provides a justification, with an overview, of the use of phenomenological inquiry and the interpretation into the everyday ethical concerns of patients with disabilities. Disability is explored as a transformative process that involves physical, cognitive, and moral changes. This perspective article discusses the advantage...

Physical therapy, like all health-care professions, governs itself through a code of ethics that defines its obligations of professional behaviours. The code of ethics provides professions with a consistent and common moral language and principled guidelines for ethical actions. Yet, and as argued in this paper, professional codes of ethics have li...

This research note describes a pilot study that examined the meaning of caring from the perspectives of patients undergoing physical therapy. A phenomenological methodology was used to explore the essential meaning of caring behaviors from the experiences of patients undergoing physical therapy. Patients were asked to describe caring interactions t...

Greenfield B: Phenomenology: an alternative ethics in rehabilitation.

Study design: Case study. Background: To date, there is little researchthat has examined the association of impairments at the hip with cumulative trauma syndromes of the hip. The purposes of this case report are to: (1) describe clinical outcomes for a patient with non-specific bilateral musculoskeletal hip pain associated with recreational walkin...

The purpose of this article is to advocate for the use of mixed methods designs in contemporary physical therapist research. Mixed methods designs are used for collecting, analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data in a single study or series of studies to both explain and explore specific research problems, thereby enriching the...

Caring has been identified as a rules-based approach to good patient care, as a core value in physical therapist professional behavior, as a part of experienced and expert practice, as a virtue, and as a moral orientation. Previous research showed that experienced and expert female physical therapists value compassion and caring in clinical practic...

Evidence-based practice implies the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making clinical decisions about patient care. Historically the evidence is derived from research using quantitative methodologies based on positivist assumptions about the nature of science. However, as we comment in this paper, postpostivism i...

Caring has been identified as a desirable indicator of professional behavior in the physical therapy profession and as a necessary value for good patient care. Yet caring is an elusive concept with multiple meanings. The present aim was to describe the nature of caring in the clinical practice of five experienced physical therapists. Purposive samp...

We evaluated three methods of strengthening the muscles of the lower leg in patients who had surgical reconstruction of the anterior cruciate ligament using an autogenous graft. Thirty-one patients met the study criteria of having a 15% or greater mean torque deficit in a muscle group of the involved leg compared with the same muscle group in the u...

Assessment of posture is an integral component of patient evaluation with shoulder overuse injuries. However, the professional literature contains relatively few studies that have assessed the relationship between posture, function, and injury. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship and differences in postural variables within...

Exercises in water have been shown to be effective for improving strength and passive range of motion (PROM). Traditional rehabilitation following intra-articular anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction has taken place on land. This study was designed to compare the effects of exercises in water on strength and girth of the thigh musculatur...

Exercise protocols designed to improve muscle function and athletic performance are continually developed and revised, often without published research supporting their efficacy. This study compared the effects of isokinetic (IKN) and accommodative isotonic training in the individualized, dynamic, variable resistance (IDVR) mode. Twenty-seven teena...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether shoulder rotational strength was greater in the plane of the scapula or the frontal plane. Isokinetic shoulder rotational strength was evaluated in 20 subjects. Using the Merac (Universal Gym Equip ment, Inc., Cedar Rapids, IA), test data was gathered in the right shoulders, in 45° abduction, at a...

This study examined the effect of cephalostatic ear rods on the positions of the head and neck. The method error was assessed for postural recordings of the head and neck position made with and without ear rods. A photographic angle was correlated with the postural angles on x-ray film. The material compared 33 dental students who were recorded wit...

A review of the literature provides an abundance of information discussing the pathology and management of the painful, stiff shoulder. To the clinician, the treatment approach to shoulder dysfunction is confusing. The research demonstrates there are many different treatment regimes for the management of shoulder dysfunction, none of which indicate...