It is as though a hush fell over the crowd. After a bazillion Republican presidential debates, countless nasty ads, and a race that looked more like Survivor than it did a presidential candidacy, there is now - silence. College basketball is over. More silence. College football is still a few months away. More silence.

But there always seems to be a way to find the irony – or humor – or both in tandem in our daily news. Truth is, without doubt, stranger than fiction. Just turn on your television and you will see what I mean. A click of the dial (hey, I am old school) will put you front and center with Dr. Oz, Jerry Springer, Oprah, Sports Center, FOX News, and the Real Housewives of Orange County. Wow. How times have changed. That’s a long way from the Little Rascals and the nightly news.

This episode of the Rhubarb Report brings sport to the forefront – or at least what we once considered sport.

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The NBA and NHL playoffs are upon us. This is the time when teams are looking for consistency, team work, and results. It is the time when your big money players need to shine, and your situational players need to step up at crunch time.

Non-evidence-based care (NEBC) is a big-name player in the starting line-up of health care. It gets a lot of minutes of game time. It makes a lot of money as a player, making it a significant draw on the team's salary cap. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

With that in mind, let's send non-evidence-based care to the sidelines, once and for all. Here's how we might do it.

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There is but one reality that we all experience. But out of one reality emerges many perceptions and beliefs. Some are well-grounded in science and logic – others, not so much.

We each develop our own model of reality, and we select data to confirm our biases. We can choose to consider and reflect upon all of the available data – and integrate that into our model – or we can choose to simply select that which is self-serving.

This has been brought to my attention a number of times recently. Sometimes, perhaps more than we would like to believe, beliefs and perceptions win out over good science, reasoning, outcomes, and results. Beliefs and perceptions can in fact prevent solutions from becoming realistic and successful long-term options.

I will admit – this approach to life has never made sense to me.

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The physical therapy profession has been bedazzled by plenty of bright and shiny objects over the years. These shiny new objects have included degree escalation, alphabet soup certifications, and continuing education ranging from dry needling to visceral manipulation amongst many others.

All that has done is pull the profession further and further away from our unique value proposition. None of this has aided in defining the role of the profession for prospective consumers.

But, we can simplify all this with some simple branding.

You see, physical therapy is, first and foremost, a movement profession. Movement and function define what we do, long before degrees and certifications.

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