Tim Fearon, Lead Faculty of Phoenix Manual Therapy & Owner of Fearon Physical Therapy, comes onto HET Podcast to talk about development and fostering psychomotor skill and clinical reasoning in healthcare professionals and much more! Tim is celebrating 40 years as a clinician. 

Tim’s Message to the PT Profession

Physical therapy students enter their educational pursuits seeking the skill required to treat patients. The successful attainment of the degree leads the student to a level of unconscious incompetence which patients will rapidly awaken the intellectually honest amongst them to. The rising clinician then begins to seek the path to conscious competence.  This is where the current system lets the aspiring clinician down. The self motivated  and driven student finds a way to create a unique mentoring path that works for them. This is our system for creating the future of the profession.

The primary education is delivered by skillful academicians who are in turn fed by skillful researchers.  This can only supply the student with knowledge, not the skill required to apply it, question it, build from it and master the interface between that which is known and that which we are learning through the skill & artistic application of our intellect.  Until our educational process balances the scales between research, academics, and skill we will continue to produce a preponderance of mediocre clinicians and as such a mediocre professional body. The father of EBM, David Sackett warned a long time ago  “Without clinical expertise, practice risks becoming tyrannized by evidence, for even excellent external evidence may be inapplicable to, or inappropriate for an individual patient.” No one chooses to attend the performance of a violinist who has mastered the reading and writing of sheet music yet never devoted time to picking up the instrument in the mindful practice of summoning the sound of it’s music from the skills required to bring all three components to life. 

Tim’s Email Address: tofpt@mac.com  

Phoenix Manual Therapy Website: http://www.phoenixmanualtherapy.com/ 

Evidence in Motion Website: https://www.evidenceinmotion.com/ 

“Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand: https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191145 

The PT Hustle Website: https://www.thepthustle.com/ 

Schedule an Appointment with Kyle Rice: www.passtheptboards.com   

HET LITE Tool: www.pteducator.com/het      Anywhere Healthcare: https://anywhere.healthcare/ (code: HET)    

Biography:

Timothy Fearon received his PT degree from The Ohio State University.  He completed the graduate program in the Musculoskeletal Sequence at Northwestern University.  He completed his Doctorate in Physical Therapy at Northern Arizona University.

He founded Phoenix Manual Therapy (PMT), which initially offered courses, based on the Nordic System of orthopedic manual therapy.  Phoenix Manual Therapy progressed to offering a long-term course frame for study of the Australian clinical reasoning approach to orthopedic manual therapy with integration of Norwegian techniques and therapeutic exercise.  The course has been running over the last 25 years.  In 2011 PMT began to sponsor Dr. Peter Gibbons & Dr. Phillip Tehan’s spinal manipulation course work and Fearon is lead faculty for course one.  He earned his Full Fellowship status in the American Academy of Orthopedic Manual Therapy by the challenge process in 1999; he renewed that status in 2010. 

Dr. Fearon is currently adjunct faculty at A. T. Still University where he teaches manual therapy of the spine and extremities at the entry level and in the residency track.  He has been a guest instructor for NAU, Arizona School of Health Sciences, Regis University, Langston University, and North Georgia College.  He is lead faculty for Evidence in Motion manual therapy courses, the Clinical Decision Making Class and Fellowship Virtual Rounds. He has taught manual therapy courses over the last 20 years, spoken at numerous meetings for the Arizona Physical Therapy Association, and for the APTA.

Dr. Fearon currently practices in an outpatient private practice specializing in orthopedic manual therapy and spinal rehabilitation where he has been for the last 28 years and has achieved 40 years in clinical practice.