Management skills and the beginning physiotherapy practitioner: Priorities for workplace preparation

Previous work has suggested that a range of management skills is required of beginning physiotherapy practitioners. Changes in the delivery of health and new approaches to work and organisation of work have impinged on those skills. The provision of health professional programs that are relevant but not overcrowded depends on accurate identification of the most needed skills, and their delivery in a optimally effective and efficient manner. The question arises whether management skills belong to the core curriculum or are optional extras in already busy programs. A study of experienced physiotherapists was undertaken to identity the management competencies considered to be the most important for new graduates. In a questionnaire, participants rated the importance of thirty-six items generated from the literature