The 83rd Texas legislature is now in session, and with it comes the latest effort to improve patient access to physical therapy.

As it stands right now in the state of Texas, patients cannot receive treatment by a physical therapist without a referral from a physician, dentist, chiropractor, podiatrist, physician assistant, or advanced nurse practitioner. Contrary to popular belief, this is not an insurance issue - this is the law. Physical therapists are one of the few (if not only) health care providers in the state of Texas that require a referral for treatment. Texas patients can see a chiropractor, massage therapist, acupuncturist, rolfer, and even a personal trainer without a referral, yet cannot do the same with a physical therapist.

How does that affect patients? It serves as an arbitrary, unnecessary and costly access barrier - plain and simple. The current restrictions are not based on evidence; however, they increase wait times and cost to patients.

It is time to remove arbitrary barriers for patient access. This would be accomplished this session with HB 1039 and SB 402.

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The holiday season is upon us. Notice the politically correct phraseology – this time of year is not just for “Merry Christmas” anymore. When I was growing up in small-town Canada, I guess I just didn’t realize that there were many end-of-season celebrations like Hanukkah or Christmas or Kwanzaa going on concurrently.

Even though the holiday season is upon us, there is always a fresh batch of rhubarb to harvest. The world would have to be on global shutdown to prevent rhubarb from appearing!

With glad tidings and good spirits in mind, here is Episode 30 of the Rhubarb Report.

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Two concepts that are often thought to exist in separate training worlds are endurance and power. Traditional coaching philosophy would have you train them in vastly different ways.

The typical example is the difference between marathoners and sprinters. This leads to a common debate - can a sprinter become a marathoner? Or vice versa?

Are endurance and power really as different as we might think?

Endurance and power have a common thread. What brings them together in real life? Mitochondria.

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The BCS is the bane of college football’s existence. There are once again efforts being put forth to have it eliminated. Hallelujah. We can hear all the lame excuses to keep it as it is. We now have a college football “national championship” which looks more like a beauty pageant and popularity contest (read: SEC) than it does a true reflection of the best in the land (read: LSU and OSU). This year, we have a couple of decent BCS games, and two that have, seriously, no relevance whatsoever to the college football landscape: Michigan vs Virginia Tech (Sugar), and Clemson vs West Virginia (Orange). Yawn.

In January 2009, I proposed a solution: December Delirium. We already have a March Madness for college basketball, so it would only be appropriate to have a December Delirium for college football. It creates a playoff dependent upon computer rankings and conference champions, and a seeding based on their computer ranking. No need for beauty pageants or popularity contests – just win games in a strong season schedule, and/or win your conference. Simple.

Without further adieu, here is the playoff schedule for the 2011-2012 (and fourth annual) December Delirium.

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