Putting the person first.

I want to acknowledge all the very positive comments I got both on here and elsewhere about this blog, so I am encouraged to continue....
I want to write today about 'Person Centred Care', a concept that I was introduced to only as recently as about 4 years ago, but surely something that as a holistic healthcare worker, I would naturally be providing in my daily work... right??
The very essence of Person Centered Care is that very important word 'Person'.  What does that mean?  Well in order to answer this, I am going to use a very real example for myself - my experience from setting up my blog yesterday.  I'll start with a wee bit of history.  From about the age of 11 or 12 I always knew what I wanted to be when I grew up, I was going to be a physiotherapist (another post for another day), so that day in June 1997 when I got the news that I had passed all my exams and I could finally say 'I am a physiotherapist' was one of the proudest days of my life.  I'd done it, all the years of hard study through school, college and university had paid off and now I had the title to prove it!  For many years I wore my title like a badge of honour, and I still do at times, I am still very proud of my achievements.  So yesterday, when I was setting up my profile I included a list of topics that I am interested in as a physiotherapist...cancer, rehabilitation, palliative care, hospice etc.  and left it at that.  I said to myself, I won't add any books or music - that information doesn't need to be there.  Then after a few hours I returned to my profile and felt like a bit of a fraud- here I was wanting to connect with 'people', yet giving nothing away about the person who I know the most about, me! How cold and clinical was that!  Had I spent so much time and energy defining myself as a physiotherapist that I had lost touch with the fact that actually I am a person first and foremost? The fact that I work as a physiotherapist provides a context, structure and framework for me to work with people in my job (for example, I follow a professional code of conduct, I have a certain level of knowledge and I am trained in techniques and skills to apply when faced with a particular problem etc), but I believe that the success of my interactions depends very much on me being a person, and my ability to relate to the other person with empathy, compassion and caring.  So for me the first step in providing Person Centred Care is acknowledging the person that it is within me.  I will write more on this, as it is something that I feel very passionately about and also it is something that on deeper reflection of myself over the years, I realise that I am only just beginning to learn and take on-board.  I have lived and worked in a 'Patient Centred Care' model for so long that it will take me some time to rearrange the circuitry in my own brain, but for now I am going to start with this: I am Joanne, I am a wife, daughter, sister, niece, aunty, friend and colleague, I like lots of things in my life, especially those things that make me laugh, I love lots of people in my life, especially those people that make me laugh, I am a bit of a hoarder, I like to keep things that remind me of important times in my life, especially those times when I laughed.....I have many aspirations and hopes that in the future there will be many more things, people and times that make me laugh, and oh yes, I am able to work as a physiotherapist.