Competitve Environments

I am on my final prac now and I am 1 week of being a curtin new grad... YAY. Working amongst new grads of Notre Dame I sometimes see a bit of competitiveness between those form the differing universities. I feel that competitiveness can often excell individual performance, however it definately hinders a team approach.
When confronted with a strong, stubbourn fellow student/ staff member who wants to do things their way I tend to always step down and let them lead an assessment or treatment. I think in fear of creating a competitive environment I wont continue to explain or clinically reason my ideas for treatment or assessment. This is something I would like to change once I am no longer a student. I have an open mind to the opinions and beliefs of others and enjoy discussing different ideas yet I know I must voice my own more.
Anyone have comments on this issue?

Live what we preach?

So days as a physio can often be spent motivating pt's to do exercises or live a more healthy lifestyle. I find that often I myself will not exercise the 30mins most days as recommended... I dont count walking to bus/ train stops or walking in hospitals at work :)
I have had one pt ask... "well what do you do?" and I had to be honest and say that I only exercise properly 2-3 times per week (walk/gym/run/swim). Then I begain thinking why that was the case and excuses to do with time and energy came to mind... I dont even have kids or have to do the house/ garden alone like many of my pt's!!! Eeek!
After this motivation I found myself easily fitting in time to exercise and exercised 4-6 times per week. It was not until I could tell my pt this that he began to listen to me. I disscussed with him the most suitable times of day for him to fit in ex in his schedule. Which we went about in a manner similar to what I had to do to get my ex regime into gear.
This proved to be much more successful that simply edu a pt what they need to do but properly setting goals and developing plans for a healthy lifestyle...
So how much ex do u all do?
How do u motivate pt's to change their lifestyles?

Creativity

It is great when you have a grasp of standard effective treatment options taught to us throughout uni. However, I still find it hard to vary these exercises when required to keep pts interested. I feel like that the creative area of my brain is a bit on the rusty side!! Doing multiple aqua classes and treatment in the form of games for children can get challenging to find new ideas over and over. Does anyone have some fabulous ideas for aqua aerobics or playing with children to add to my exercise brain bank? Thanks :)

Yellow flags

Hi all, on my last prac. Piecing all my knowledge together. Yet I have found there are just some patients where physio skills just cant beats lots, lots and lots of life coaching, listening, empathising and simply being a person who cares to a very distressed/ troubled/ depressed pt. I have found that providing this to a pt with yellow flags is very benefitial to them. However they then can get quite attached to you as their primary support network. Also as a student it feels quite silly spending so much time on subjective and speaking endlessly over massage and heat/ US when u are trying to demonstrate your skills to a supervisor.I have suggested councilling or joining social clubs to such pt's which I find hard to do at times. What approaches have you made in such a circumstance?