This post contains material that advocates changing the name of the British Society of Rehabilitation to the British Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. I (Derick Wade) have asked three leading advocates for changing the name to write a post for this website, with no conditions attached. All refused the invitation. Nevertheless, I am keen to publish a post written in support of changing the name, and if anyone wishes to do so please contact me. (here) At present, to be sure that I do not misrepresent their reasons for change, I am publishing the summary from the circulated discussion document; the full version can be downloaded here. The background to this debate and proposal is given on another page, here. The post advocating that the name should not change is here.
Why change the name to BSPRM?
The last two, summary paragraphs in the consultation document say:
In summary, by changing our name to British Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, it is our assertion that we will:
- Increase our society membership by attracting clinicians from Sport and Exercise Medicine (SEM), Pain, Cancer Rehab and Cardiopulmonary Rehab to join us that enables us have a greater impact as a society on disability care and health policy.
- Bring our society in line with the rest of the world and foster growth in our workforce, so that we meet the international standards and deliver the medical workforce needed to manage people with disability. Currently we are at 10% of the required strength: 0.2 consultants/100,000 population whereas we need to be 2/100,000.
- Bring back Musculoskeletal Medicine expertise to the society, which we lost to other societies in spite of musculoskeletal problems and chronic pain being the single largest cause of disability in any population and should be one of our main focus areas of practice.
- Give us a broader, fresher outlook and allow us to work collaboratively with our peers outside the UK on educational, clinical and research projects and bring a sense of international equivalence with rest of the world.
- Encourage PRM trained clinicians from outside the UK to work in clinical posts in the UK which we have constantly failed to fill and reduce our risk of losing posts due to failed recruitment.
By choosing to remain the British Society of Rehabilitation Medicine, it is our assertion that we will:
- Fail to address the ambiguous nature of our scope and expertise and perpetuate the confusion that we are somehow different or inferior to our peers in the rest of the world.
- Continue the fragmented nature of our RM society (RM, SEM, Pain, Cancer Rehab, Cardiopulmonary Rehab are all currently separate societies) and failing to be working under one banner and serving those with disability irrespective of cause and organ system.
