Hello to all my readers and friends,
It has been more than a year since I have posted. The time since my last post essentially spans the timeline of the pandemic, minus perhaps a month. So, what’s happened since? Quite a bit. I have successfully trudged my way through 95% of my didactic education. This included some biomechanics, a few musculoskeletal/orthopedic classes, some education on therapeutic agents, pediatrics, geriatrics, prosthetics & orthotics, and last, but certainly not least, neuro rehabilitation. I also spent some time working as a Contact Tracer for the Virginia Department of Health–a great experience.
Most importantly, however, I completed my first, longer-term clinical experience. My experience was set in an hospital-based outpatient clinic that has PTs that see both a neurologic and orthopedic patient caseload. My instructor is NCS certified and saw a primarily neuro-heavy caseload. I also had the great fortune of being surrounded by other neuro, orthopedic, lymphedema, pelvic health and pain specialist PTs during my 8 weeks there. Many of the clinicians were kind of enough to find me to show me a positive special test, or how to work a new, portable FES system. I am so grateful for all of the PTs (and OTs) that I got to watch work.
With all of that said, my favorite part of the whole experience was working with patients. For truly the first time since I have been a rehab tech, I had a caseload of patients. I was reminded of the value of experiencing the longitudinal aspects of physical therapy where a new idea would pop up and I had the chance to bring that new idea to a patient I have been seeing. The best example I have of the was my use of PNF across a number of neuro diagnoses. PNF was a topic I felt most versed in from class, and it was also an area of rehab that my clinician, and many of the other clinicians, were less familiar with. I presented an in-service on the topic of PNF rhythmic stabilization on cerebellar tremor.
Overall, the clinical experience reminded me of why I love this profession: I enjoy working with people who want to get better. I feel honored to witness a patient’s vulnerability and feel called to help my patients however I possibly can. We receive so many tools in our education, and I believe the distilling of that information for patients is the key to success.
Thank you to my first clinical site for an extremely positive experience. I can only hope that my next two experiences will hold up to the standard set by the staff there. Thank you, specifically, to Jaime, my clinical instructor and phone-a-friend lifeline, for her limitless drive to guide my learning. Thanks to Nate, for being a friend in a place where I often felt small among PT industry-giants. Thanks to Jeb for many late-shift conversations on networking, and continued feedback. Thanks to Carter, for letting me work with her for a week and helping me get a second set of neuro-PT eyes.
First Wealth Health 