I love golf.
I also kind of suck at golf.
I don’t get to play nearly as much as I want, so when I do, it’s a mixed bag. Sometimes I hit one really clean and think, “Okay, there it is. I figured it out.”
Then the next shot I top the ball or chunk a piece of grass farther than the ball, and remember very quickly that I have not, in fact, figured it out.
There’s so much stuff you can obsess over in golf. Better clubs. Different golf balls. New shoes. Learning all of Tiger’s techniques. All the little things that might help someone who’s already pretty good squeeze a little more out of their game.
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to make solid contact often enough that the brand of my golf ball probably isn’t the thing holding me back. My favorite ball is usually the one I found in the woods after I lost mine.
Could better clubs or the right ball help me? Maybe. It’s honestly hard to tell because I’m too inconsistent to even know.
If I’m hitting the ground before I hit the ball, we probably have a bigger problem.
I think we do a version of this in healthcare education all the time.
Whether it’s professional school, continuing education, conferences, whatever, there is a ton of information to cover. And yes, the details are important. You need to know what exists, what to watch for, and when something deserves more attention.
But we can get so buried in all of it that the learner walks away knowing more information and somehow feeling less prepared to actually use it.
We’ve all sat through that lecture.
Forty-five minutes later you’ve been introduced to 37 new things, six exceptions to every rule, and a handful of scenarios you may never even encounter. Meanwhile, the whole topic now feels about ten times more intimidating than it did before the lecture started.
And sometimes, if we’re being honest, educators throw every fancy little detail into a lecture because it demonstrates expertise. I get it. You worked hard to know that stuff.
But proving how much you know and helping somebody else become better at what they do aren’t always the same thing.
That’s the piece I care about when I teach amputee rehab.
Most rehab professionals already have a really solid skill set. I’m not trying to replace that. I’m trying to help organize those skills around this patient population so you know what to look at, what to prioritize, how the prosthesis changes the picture, and how to actually use what you already know.
Then as you treat more patients, work with prosthetists, troubleshoot difficult situations, and keep learning, those smaller details start making a lot more sense because now you have somewhere to put them.
That’s very different from trying to memorize every possible detail before you ever feel confident enough to get started.
My goal with education isn’t to see how much information I can fit into someone’s head.
It’s to help more clinicians get really damn good at treating people with limb loss.
If I ever get consistently good at hitting a golf ball, I’ll start worrying more about which one gives me three extra yards.
For now, I should probably focus on hitting the ball.