Another Eventful Week

Wooooohoooooo!!! Guess what day it is? That’s right, it’s a Friday and I’m spending my Friday night eating ice cream and writing my week 3 blog post for you guys (I know right, I’m a wild one). It really seemed like you guys enjoyed Bruin more than anything else I wrote about in last week’s post as almost every comment I read mentioned him. I’ll try and bring more Bruin pictures for you guys (that way you have more of an incentive to tune in every week :-P).

As the weeks have gone by, things have progressively been getting juicier and juicier (for lack of a better word). We’ve analyzed patients of many different ages with many different injuries. In doing so, we questioned them on their experiences with physical therapy and even worked to stretch them out/exercise them. See, many of the patients at this clinic understand the aggressive approach it takes, and while they may struggle and fatigue, the long term implications are what makes it worth it. One particular patient described this form of therapy as painful, but necessary. To put this in perspective, I'll hearken back to the senior quote I made: “Obstacles and struggles are just fuel to the fire that makes you stronger.” Trust me, I did not plan this, but turns out it ended up working out pretty well. Anyways, the main point is that everyone needs a little push to get to the other side; and here at Synergy, everyone is aware of that and embraces it (otherwise they’d be at some other clinic right?) But without further ado, let’s get into this week...

As I mentioned in last week’s post, today is the last day for Joe and Lori :(. From here, they will go on to continue their journey in becoming a registered PT and PTA respectively. And just as an FYI, PT’s are mainly concerned with diagnosing patients and prescribing rehabilitation programs while PTA’s prioritize preparing patients to be diagnosed and aiding patients in executing their rehabilitation programs. But anyways, a big thank you to Joe and Lori! I remember telling Joe I want a beard like his because the problem with mine is that it doesn’t connect and his does perfectly. So, if you have any suggestions to fix that, PLEASE comment down below, it’s really been bothering me lately.

In addition to the departure of Joe and Lori, there was also the arrival of a new student, Kirsten. She is currently on a quest to become a PTA and simply trying to familiarize herself within the clinic’s setting and working to hone the requisite skills of a PTA. Though Kirsten will only be here for two weeks, I am really excited to work with her as her outgoing personality seems to comfort every patient and allow them to build trust in her, something I’m working to develop during my time here. As far as my work in clinic this week, it was more of the same routine. I began filling out subjective sheets, which are essentially documents individualized for each patient, holding information on what therapeutic exercises/activates were performed during the visit and notes on how the patient was feeling coming into the visit. These records allow us to analyze any progress the patients are making and which exercises work and which ones don’t. From there, we may adjust the treatment regimens to what caters to the long term benefits of the patients. I also will be discussing with Dr. Vincent about some more in-depth analysis for my research and will work to bring in new concepts such as surveys into next week’s post for you all. But other than that, I think that’ll do it for this post. As always, thank you for tuning this week and I hope to see you next week for more exciting experiences and discoveries!