a little PT

well, i've hit the six-week mark here in Big Stone, which means i have only two left. its gone by really fast, the weekdays are busy and the weekends full of adventures (as you have seen). i haven't written much about my clinical experience mostly because i know many of you are not really interested in the physical therapy part of my journey. and to be honest, i wasn't feeling too excited about it by the time i reached midterm. i felt like i wasn't being challenged and that i was having to direct my own learning experiences by asking for feedback and voicing what i was ready to take on independently. fortunately, feedback is forced during the midterm eval, and i found out that my CI thought i was doing a pretty good job.
since then though, in the last two weeks, reasons i chose to come to a rural hospital for my clinical began to blossom. i evaluated a patient with a hand/wrist injury requiring desensitization therapy. if you're not a PT, then you probably don't know that most referrals for patients with a hand issue are going to hand certified specialists. these are PTs who specialize in the therapy of the wrist and hand (and entire upper extremity) because it is such an intricate animal. however, there are no specialists in this area, so these patients come to us. i was even learning a few tools probably more used by occupational therapists. next came a string of patients after MVAs and multiple surgical stabilizations of fractures requiring them to be wheelchair bound. this gave me the opportunity to practice a part of PT that has become very important to me. if i choose to go into an outpatient practice, i have vowed to never become a PT that ignores the basics, such as bed mobility and transfers. i think it is possible that in a high level sports medicine clinic, a PT may rarely ever have to address how a patient transfers out of bed. but i think on average, one will always be faced with patients where this is a critical matter of safety and becoming independent with one's care. whenever i saw patient enter the clinic in a wheelchair, i made a little self-reminder that i would address their mobility and transfers in my eval. and i had plenty of opportunities to do this.
on top of all the above, a patient with paraplegia came for therapy at the clinic. this i was sure was unique to being the only clinic in town. i'm thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him and be exposed to the different factors at play when someone is paraplegic. so after a slow start, this clinical actually has provided me with some unique experiences and provided me an opportunity to practice skills that form the foundation of my physical therapy experience.