Comment on How To Cure Evidence B(i)ased Physiotherapy by John Hilson.

You certainly make an excellent point, and I share your fear that we are creating young professionals that do not understand the “art” of what we do. Having said that, we have to be careful that we do not go backwards to some degree, to the time of experts and gurus, and allowing the latest technique with all its bells and whistles to seduce us. You wanted to follow Maitland, Cyriax was my guy. I remember trying to mobilize so gently that I wouldn’t break a fly’s legs, as Paris taught us. Today it seems that guru’s are replaced with techniques that may or may not have much evidence behind them – dry needling and kinesio taping, or gurus that tell us we can simply explain pain and it will magically diminish and go away (I’m probably being overly cynical, but that goes with age.) Hopefully after reading your post, many more will realize that there are three legs to the evidence based practice, and use all three to guide their practice.