ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the challenges and opportunities in more detail and point to ways that physiotherapy might choose to become something other than it is today. It argues that one cannot undertake a critical history of a profession like physiotherapy without considering how it has been shaped by the changing economy of healthcare. The predicted future shortages of skilled healthcare workers may, on their own, force professions like physiotherapy to adapt and change. Throughout the profession's history, physiotherapists have shown remarkable plasticity in the way they have adapted to the changing economy of healthcare. Perhaps the welcome embrace given to evidence-based practice speaks more to the physiotherapy profession's relationship to the State than it does to its relationship with healthcare consumers. The 'end' or purpose of physiotherapy is only one of the two main functions for the text, however. The other function is to predict the beginning of the chronological end of physiotherapy as a professional discipline.
