Event Facilitated by Stephanie Molloy and Erin Keough from JCR, and Sheela Ivlev from DisruptOT
Written by Stephanie Molloy
We ended off 2024 with an inspiring Coffee Break in November, where we (finally!) collaborated with DisruptOT. To set the tone of our discussion, our three hosts started by sharing experiences of past conferences and academic journals.
Stephanie discussed global conferences where it is easy for barriers to arise - from the physical location (Are visas easy to get? Are hotels and food affordable?), to having English language requirements for presentations which can oppress speakers, and lack of accessibility.
Sheela further discussed the barriers to conferences touching on visas, the cost to attend often being expensive, paid partnerships being heavily valued by conference organizers, and the gatekeeping of content (such as it not being released after the conference). This lead DisruptOT to host a “Unconference” last year to break down many of these barriers.
Erin then discussed her experiences with conferences hosted by private businesses, that talk a lot without saying very much, and emphasize the “party” more than the education and community building. This leads to a lot of people patting each other on the back, without any actionable change or impact happening.
Lastly Sheela shared about academic journals, discussing fees to apply for publication, fees to access publications, and journals themselves using their (very high) profit margins to fund things like war.
This all paved the way for our open discussion, which took us in many interesting directions as we tried to untangle the different methods of knowledge access for healthcare, their barriers, and their harms.
“We need to look at grassroots again” was a sentiment that came up often. We discussed how we need to look at changes in leadership and education early on to help create change in the environment , and that more awareness and education in spaces and platforms where the youth get their information would be beneficial. What could alternative learning look like? Could it be using Manga to teach kids about finances? Music to help people learn? How can cultural entities and experiences help us teach and understand new knowledge? Knowledge access doesn’t start when you become a professional, but from early school experiences.
This interesting train of thought led us to Social Media and Knowledge Translation.
Many physios have turned to Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, and other social media to become health-influences. But is this sharing of information a radical attempt to improve healthcare access or a profit- or ego- driven method to gain popularity and fame? We discussed both sides of this coin, social media can certainly be a helpful tool and can also be detrimental and lead to more damage being done or misinformation being spread. Additionally, how is this information being regulated and whose responsibility is that - from the connect creator, to the app, to the consumer - there’s many ways that good and bad information can be shared.
Barriers to healthcare knowledge
It is no surprise that the majority of our discussion focused around the issue of barriers to healthcare knowledge and health literacy. We discussed how most of the general public do not understand publishing about conditions impacting their life or knowing where to look for valid information, and that public health efforts are not always able to fill in these gaps.
Additionally, in our education as healthcare professionals - individuals who have lived-experiences are not always consulted in our education, leaving us with just textbook understandings of conditions.
In the same vein of education of health care practitioners, we turned our attention to continuing education hours. So many important topics that are outside of the “usual” scope of practice courses - such as any justice centered topic - are often events run by volunteers who don’t have the capacity to generate participation certificates to all participants. Does this mean these webinars and events are less valuable? Not “formal education”? Even when they bring forward such important topics, lessons, and sense of community.
This led us further into the concept of who decides what counts - to put it simply. Who is deciding what research is worth publishing, which journal is more respected, which courses are worth cont. ed. hours or not. It is important that we interrogate the status quo and the notion of “that’s just how it is”. We discussed the “economics of how knowledge is being created”, and all the interesting changes happening. More journals are starting to be open access, but still have capitalistic practices. More health professionals are having these conversations and educating themselves. However, we can’t completely check out of capitalism and pretend it doesn’t exist - we still need to pay our bills. So, “it’s a constant challenge figuring out how to navigate within our systems that we reside and where to push”.
System Bullying
This can affect how you present yourself, uphold your ideals, and interact with your work and colleagues.
One participant shared the story of while they were on clinical placement they were made to iron their professors clothes and feed their dog,and they were not able to speak out about this for fear of not being allowed to graduate or get their professional licence.
Another participant brought up the idea that if you protest things often, you may seem like you lose your credibility. Some peers may respect you less or feel you complain about everything. This can make you feel like you have to conform to the hierarchy and current system.
“Those in power can and will retaliate, do you what you can do to get to where you need to”.
We discussed knowing when and where to pick your battles - for example with the above story, to wait until graduation and securing your licence before trying to speak out to try to at least improve the conditions for the students after you. But at the end of the day, we have to ensure we protect ourselves as well. We can’t be of help to others if we are unwell ourselves.
Although it may seem we discussed many barriers and challenges that we faced, this was a very inspiring meeting where everyone felt seen and heard for the experiences they have been through. We were able to hold each other through our frustration, and inspire what a better more accessible future may look like. I hope through this summary you have also found inspiration!
Interesting resources:
“The money behind academic publishing” https://tidsskriftet.no/en/2020/08/kronikk/money-behind-academic-publishing
Find out whose land you are on: https://native-land.ca/
Occupational Therapy for Native Americans: https://sites.google.com/view/ot4natives/home
Open source journal access -
Diverse-OT free education opportunities: https://www.instagram.com/diverseot_national/
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