Professional Practice, Ethics and Regulation
Regulatory questions test your obligations, not your clinical preferences. Know the architecture: a national competency examination, provincial and territorial colleges that license and discipline, scope-of-practice legislation, and controlled acts that may be authorized to physiotherapists. Understand informed consent - including capacity assessment, substitute decision-makers, and the right to withdraw consent at any time - and privacy law such as health-information statutes and federal privacy legislation.
Concepts to own
- Documentation standards: contemporaneous, objective, dated, signed, and sufficient for another practitioner to continue care.
- Supervision and delegation: what may be assigned to assistants or students, what must remain with the physiotherapist, and the accountability that stays with you.
- Professional boundaries, conflict of interest, gifts, dual relationships, and social media conduct.
- Mandatory reporting duties, adverse event disclosure, and duty to protect.
- Ethical decision-making frameworks: identify the dilemma, the stakeholders, the relevant obligations, the options and the least restrictive course.
Traps
Questions often set up a plausible-sounding shortcut - treating without consent because the patient is 'difficult', discussing a patient with a colleague in a public area, or accepting a large gift. Another trap is the assumption that a family member can automatically consent for an adult; capacity, not relationship, is the trigger. Also watch for the difference between an ethical duty and a legal one, and between college standards and personal values.
Rule of thumb
When an item poses an ethical dilemma, rank the options by whether they preserve the patient's autonomy and confidentiality while keeping you inside your scope and your college standards. The best answer is almost always the one that involves the patient in the decision, documents the reasoning, and escalates appropriately - not the one that quietly resolves the problem.