Tele-Practice Roleplay

Approaching the tele-practice roleplay, I was hesitant, with limited knowledge of tele-practice and not being a qualified practitioner, I had little faith this would be an effective form of therapy. There was no scaffold to approach the task so my partner and I used facetime as our medium. I quickly realised the lack of physical contact was a challenging barrier, especially with the roleplay patient requiring physio for their progressive condition. This lack of intimacy made it difficult to interpret the clients’ discomfort, as I couldn’t physically manipulate the body. I found it to be a very rigid experience. Reserves I had towards tele-practice are shared among practitioners spanning out into the world of telehealth. At first sight telehealth

has barriers which aren’t experienced in face-to-face contact. I wasn’t sure how to carry out an assessment of the patient over a video medium. This closed mindedness limited my execution and created a barrier for the tele-practice task to be effective. Nevertheless, I continued to work through the challenges as if I was in a clinical setting through the application of existing knowledge and adapting to suit the exercise. Additionally, the greatest challenge for myself was not knowing any guideline to follow. I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was the correct and most effective way to care for the patient’s condition whilst reassuring them they were moving in the right direction. Not having any face-to-face contact resulted in us changing the way we would usually behave in a clinical setting. This meant it was harder to understand the patients’ needs and for them to express their frustration with their progress as there was no professional rapport. This became more of a challenge when the connection kept cutting out obliging us to review areas already covered. Towards the end of the task my attitude towards telehealth changed as I could identify the potential telehealth has for those living in rural areas where limited access to clinicians is available. I realised I was more sceptical towards telehealth than my client as for them there was no other treatment option. The telepractice task has broadens my views of how it’s possible to maintain a face-to-face component for telehealth with its importance coming into sharp focus for me. The exercise highlighted how you can maintain a balance between professional rapport and assessment whilst addressing the needs of the patient.