Hi everyone, this blog is really late but some of you might read it sometime.
Today was my first day on a musculo-skeletal prac and it was one of the scariest days of my life. My second patient was a new patient and therefore required a full subjective & objective assessment and then a short treatment.
The patient was lovely but her condition was so complex that it ended up taking me 50 minutes to get a subjective out of her. I felt totally rude for interrupting her and trying to get her to answer direct questions the whole time, and I felt like she was getting really upset with me trying to hurry her along. Then the supervisor came in and encouraged me to hurry with the subjective and reminded me that I was taking WAY too long. Finally I squeezed the last information out but I was so exhausted by the end of the subjective that I had no energy for the objective and treatment!
I ended up being quite blunt with the lady and interrupted her during her stories fairly often. I was mixed between totally annoyed with her for going off track, but then totally annoyed with myself for not just sitting and LISTENING to her! After all, this ladies social history was so complex that she had no one she could talk to other than us... And what if her mental health was having a major influence on her physical well being!?! Then shouldn't I really be listening to what she had to say and not try and hurry her along to things that are relevant to me?
I understand why the supervisor was really trying to push me along and get on with it but as I walked out of the office for the day I wondered how much we should push our patients along to answer our questions or listen to them when they want to tell us every detail.
Just a thought. Any comments?
Caris
1 comment:
Hi Caris,
Well done on getting through the assessment. I remember my first day of musculo was stressful enough without a complicated patient and a new assessment. Would your patient have been open to you asking if she could just answer your questions and that you would get time to have a chat afterward – maybe during the treatment esp if it was massage or stretches or something like that? I’ve found that to work with a couple of my patients. Did she seem like someone a referral to a counselor or a social worker might help?
Mel
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