Hey all!
So only 2 more weeks to go, till we finish our very last pracs ever YAY!! Lucky for me I get to finish off with neuro. Compared to all my other pracs, neuros definitely the most challenging, I’m sure most of you agree. Towards the end of last week, I had to do an initial assessment on a patient. My superviser told me to do a quick mobility the check (for the nurses), and then do a more detailed assessment later. So that’s exactly what I did, a “quick” mobility check, ie. Rolling, supine à sit, sitting balance, sit to stand, standing balance and ambulation. I went back to the superviser who then asked me questions like, is the patient equal wt bearing, sitting posture, standing posture, what happening at the ankle, knee, hip, trunk during gait, what are voluntary movements at the arm like, any perceptual deficits – how did you test these, the list went on. Of course my answer to a majority of these questions was, “umm didn’t look that closely into it, was leaving it for later”. I was told that I’m 2 weeks away from being qualified, and that at this stage of the year, my skills were at a 1st/2nd year level. OUCH.
I’m not sure if that was a fair call, yes I’ve gone through 6 other pracs prior to this, but this is the first and only neuro prac I’ve done, and in an area as specialized as neuro, it shouldn’t matter if it was my very first prac for 4th yr or the very last one, because the level of competence would be the same.
But saying that, the fault on my behalf is that I wasn’t using my observation skills, it doesn’t matter what area of physio your working in, I should have been paying more attention to my patient, and picking up on things as I was doing the mobility assessment.
As a result of this, I feel that I’ll be better prepared for the next new patient I get, and will save a lot of time on assessment, rather than having to repeat things. Also I want to put forward the question, will students benefit more from having a neuro prac for 5 weeks, rather than 4?
Rev
1 comment:
Hi Rev! how exciting .. we are nearly finished!
I agree with you that not having done any neuro all year, how are you supposed to be better at your neuro skills in your last prac versus your first prac?
I think 5 weeks would be best in all the major areas (cardio, neuro, musculo) - Alas.. we have not all been so lucky! I have found that for those pracs I had for 5 weeks, I was still learning heaps in my 5 th week. However, just remember that graduating isnt the be all and end all, when we graduate we will still be learning, so I dont think 1 week will make such a difference. From what i understand, for the 4 week pracs they jsut try and progress us faster to get us up to the same level that we would be, had we done a 5 week prac. Just make the mo0st of it! and I hope you enjoy it!
I can see the light at the end :)
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