5/30/2013

Clinics are over!!! 15 weeks and I'm finally done! I'm actually a bit sad. I really want to go back. I had an exciting morning. I was only supposed to have 1 patient but instead I had 3.  My last patient I am seeing for a fractured humerus but was getting abnormal wrist pain. I sent her to emergency to get an x-ray and I pick up something. I think that it was a studios fracture but I am so bad at reading x-rays  that I can't be quite certain and the report has not been done yet. I finished in fracture clinic which was wonderful today. I killed it! I saw 6 and treated them all brilliantly. My favourite was the 6foot 10 footballer who they gave to me because my supervisor and both my partners are around 6 feet so they thought it would be funny to make the little girl jump. That's it. No more musc. I sure enjoyed it!

5/29/2013

I had such a good day in clinic today. I went in to the inpatient department and treated a patient completely on my own. To be fair she was independent but I still treated her and progressed her exercises on my own! I got my marks and I did quite well. I really wish I had been just a tad bette but I did well. In out patients I was on my game. I treated all of my patients brilliantly and 1 of them showed up with some pretty strange symptoms. I think that I have correctly diagnosed a biceps rupture sustained earlier this week in a patient that I have been treating for the past 4 weeks who has shoulder problems. After clinic was work and study. Good day! 

5/28/2013

It's my last week of musc so I'm trying to make the most of it. I had my last hydro session today and my clinical exam. The exam was relaxed and easy. I got a good mark but my supervisor said please stop acting so nervous. I turned in the paperwork that took me hours last night. I hope that I did well. The day was pretty calm since exams took 3 hours, the pool takes 2 and we had to have lunch.... 

Last late night this evening doing a bit of research on irreparable rotator cuff tears for a friend. 

5/27/2013

Happy birthday Abbie! 

Day 4 with no water. So I went in early this morning to shower before clinic. I had a good conversation with my favourite super scary supervisor. Then I effectively treated 3 patients, called a private practice physiotherapist, ran a gym class and wrote notes in time or lunch. We had a tutorial this afternoon and it was really helpful.

I meant to go swimming tonight but I got home and started working on what will hopefully be my last green form(a 4 page diagram that I do for each patient). I was so enthusiastic that I put about 6 hours of work into it and didn't make it to the pool.  I'm pretty proud of it but it will probably get ripped to shreds as per usual. At least the process increases my understanding. 

5/26/2013

Today I worked 4 games with the kids teams again. 10,12,14,&  16 year olds. It was fun and took my mind off the fact that it is....

Day 3 with no water. I am managing quite grumpily. I did finally give up and go to a friend's house to shower. I dislike not being able to turn on the faucet and needing to fill up my toilet with a bucket from outside. Cooking is also a joy. 

I did some more work on my problem lists tonight. They are looking quite nice:) Up early tomorrow so that I can shower at the hospital before starting at 7:30. 

5/25/2013

Day 2 with no water. We stumped another plumber today but other than that we are no closer to a solution. We do have running water outside so we have been bringing buckets in to wash dishes and flush the toilets. 

Footy today was a fantastic break from the plumbing problems. I was with the clubbies who were playing Marsala 34km away. That means that I got a good bike ride in and actually enjoyed working. Win all around. Speaking of which we won by over 100 points. 

I was really hoping to have water by the time I got home but I don't. So after work I got dressed up and went out.... For a Saturday night at the laundermat with my problem list. 

Since both cooking and doing dishes are such a pain right now Kat decided to go out for dinner. After 8 months living here we are finally went to the pub at the end of the street. It's sporty and the food looked good. After a game today and 4 games to work tomorrow, I was not in the mood to watch more footy. So once I had been sufficiently social I went home to study.

5/24/2013

I started out the day with a lazy swim. Then breakfast and clinical discussions. I love being able to choose my own clothes on Fridays:) 

Then we had a few presentations from clinicians and teachers talking about ways to integrate everything that we are doing. 

After class we had a mini lunch party Steph had invited herself over for cake so we also invited Angela. I made curry and Kat made a marble cake. It was quite fun because Steph who arranged this party is a very picky eater and brought her own food. I was grumpy and Kat teased her until she tried some. She ended up liking it. 

We realised during our lunch party that our water wasn't working. This is a fairly normal occurrence since the water to our unit is often shut off while there is maintenance on the other units. After our guests left we realised that we actually have a water problem. The plumber that came by on his way home said, "you're stuffed!" We have a blockage in one of our incoming pipes. The plumber is coming back tomorrow with more tools. They will probably need to dig up the yard and knock down some stuff:( 

So.... We have no water until then. 

We went out for dinner at a friends and played cards all evening, so tonight wasn't an issue but things should be fun in the morning. 

5/23/2013

I had a few dumb moments again today. I think that I am just psyching myself out. If I put in the effort over the weekend and relax during clinic, I should do well. I have starting critiquing the supervisor 's clothing choices. Some of them I like while others I'm not so sure about. 

The physiotherapists here most definitely wear more skirts than the ones in the United States. 

5/22/2013

I just don't have the right answers. I put in the effort but I just don't seem to have it. My supervisor told me not to be lazy and do my paperwork to the highest standard. So I spent 5 hours between last night and this morning researching and doing my best to back up all of my treatment with research. He took one look at it and said, " stop getting all your information from a book, this should only have taken 30 minutes" 

I had 3 patients this morning and was super efficient with my time management so that I was done 2 hours early. At which point I was in trouble for rushing and not keeping busy. 

This afternoon I had 2 scheduled. One was my favourite, the first person I treated in clinic, but she canceled:( 

The other had fallen over the weekend and sprained his a-c joint(aka shoulder). He had absolutely no problems, I searched for everything from neck to little finger and he was perfect so I sent him home. But I stumbled a bit because I assumed that there was something that I had missed. I was desperately trying to treat him and my supervisor had to assure me that some people are referred to PT in error. I feel hopelessly dumb but I hope that my supervisors can tell how hard I'm trying.

5/21/2013

It's week 4 of placement. It's kinda like the junior year of high school where you are suddenly piled up with a ton of work because they want to push you really hard to see how much you are capable of. So.... The really mean supervisor who told me good job on Thursday said something to my main supervisor and instead of saying "good job Maddie Jo is impossible to impress" he said "how come you're so lazy on the assignments that I give you?" Sigh 

That means that I got to treat all my patients today, take on an extra one, finish 15 minutes late.... Then do 5 hours of research for tomorrow morning and I haven't done anything for tomorrow afternoon yet:( I guess I'll be going in early. Sigh! 

I really like orthopaedics but I'm feeling a tad over extended at the moment. 

5/20/2013

Sorry guys I have had such up loading problems lately. Don't know what's going on. Monday started out alright. I treated my first patient really well. I got a tad thrown by the second one because my supervisor completely changed my plan and I was disoriented the entire session. I think she was particularly on my case(or I was just nervous) for my evaluation after that because she second guessed everything I did. My patient was in so much pain anyway that it didn't matter.  I did half of what I wanted and none of what she wanted. So out of the 3 patients I saw 1.5 treatments went well. Now you may be thinking, Maddie when you worked at A&C Raj could see 15 patients in the morning and you only see 3. Well.... I am about 1/5 as good of a physio, we have an hour less and I have to step out of the room every 2 seconds to talk to my supervisor. Not for them to help me but for me to justify my clinical reasoning and treatment options. Also we have no aids, assistants, or group exercise. So that's why I treat so few patients in a session. This afternoon we just had a tutorial that went quickly which meant that I had extra time to study before going on a bike ride and spending the evening studying. 

5/19/2013

I worked all day again. This morning I left my house at 6am to bike 20km out to the field. It doesn't take me that long to do 20 km but I didn't know where I was going and needed to look at by phone almost constantly. I filled in for a friend today. I worked 8-4 doing under 10, under 12, under 14, and under 16. Some of the parents are quite intense but overall it was a pretty chill day. They were nicer and paid me better than my regular club but by the time I finished I was so over it. These kids don't need much, mostly band aids and ice. The ride home was fantastic and I had a productive evening of cooking and study. 

5/18/2013

I worked all day. Clubbie and under 18's it wasn't the best day. I love the clubbies team and I think that they are great but Rowan, the coach was throwing a fit(not at me) and he is much nicer to be around when he is in a pleasant mood. Fitzy the ground manager was throwing a fit at me about how the other girl didn't show up. I was already doing my job+her job so getting scolded for mot checking up on her made me mad. Then the under 18's coach decided to be a jerk. He was just plain rude to me several times while I was working my butt off. I've been with the club for 2 years now and the only thing he can think to say is " hey nurse, do this". I am not a nurse. He didn't actually need a nurse. We don't ever have nurses at games. I know the name of every player, every coach and this specific coach's wife and daughter. "Excuse me trainer", or "hey Maddie" would not be unreasonable to expect. I was grumpy by the time I got home and then did a bit of homework before bed. 

5/17/2013

We were luck enough to get the Friday after the ball off from class. I was exhausted and my legs hurt from too much dancing(man I'm a wimp). After sleeping in I took the train(2hours) to Angela's house to pick up my bike and bag. Then I rode the (0.5hour) bike trip home. I did a bit of work and then got dolled up for Angela's birthday party. She had it at a great bar called naked for satan. There at $2 tapas of all different types and you collect toothpicks from each. It was a really good night and I really enjoyed seeing friends. They were all amazed because they had never seen my hair done(I.e. not in a ponytail) Angela passed out at 9:05. No seriously, she fainted. It was very damsel like. She's sick and the heels and fatigue got to her. Perfectly fine now,  but everyone teased about her passing out just after 9pm on her 30th birthday. 

5/16/2013

Thursday. Possibly my favourite day of the week. I was in clinic at 7 to prepare for my patients. I had another surprise patient today at 9. It throws off my whole day. I am learning to roll with it and treat them as they come. I was only 10 minutes behind by the end of the morning and my notes were much more coherent this time. 

After lunch we had fracture clinic where I presented on FAI and got a "good job!" from the terrifying supervisor who is never nice to anyone. It made my day. Actually the best part of my week. We got out of fracture clinic "early" at 5:03( it goes 2-5, but we normally get stuck until 6). I rode as fast as my little legs could carry me to my friend Angela's house to get ready for the physiotherapy ball. It was a 3 course ball with about an hour of dancing between each course. It was fun and great to see everyone looking so nice. 

5/15/2013

I didn't sleep very well last night with the blood pressure cuff going off once an hour. Luckily, I wasn't too tired during the day and the devices didn't get in my way too much. There was one point that I was trying to do mobilisations and the blood pressure cuff squeezed so tight that my arm went numb, other than that everything was good. I got my halfway feed back in clinic today. It went really well. I am doing better in the middle of musc than I was at the end of neuro. My patients today were doing quite well. I love seeing them progress. After clinic I happily gave back the monitors. Then I had work. On my way home my friend Steph begged me to come over and help her put on fake tan for the ball tomorrow. I went for the giggles and the cookies. It turned out nice but really this is Australia who needs fake tan?

5/14/2013

It's really starting to be winter and I dislike it.  It was cold and dark this morning when I went into the pool.  The pool was warm and relaxing.  This morning on the ward was slow as ever.  I treated 4 patients in 6 hours.  We got out of bed and i said ok cool I guess you're going to rehab....
I stopped down in outpatients to prepare for tomorrow and got back some of my paperwork.  Generally I'm doing well.  I hope to improve even more by next week.
This evening(and tomorrow) I am involved in a clinical pharmacology study.  Not one of those crazy ones where you take experimental meds.  I am doing a heart rate and blood pressure study to assist in spinal cord injury research.  I'm hooked up with a 6 lead ECG and a blood pressure cuff.  I do everything as normal just with the portable heart rate and blood pressure monitor.  I hope  get my results when i finish.  This could be fun!

5/13/2013

I like to think that I had a good day in clinic. I treated 3 patients in a row, finished my notes, and was almost on time for the gym session that I was supposed to run at 11:30. I hope that I am a actually getting better at treating. I definitely feel more confident with it. My supervisor is wonderful and really helps to make the treatment worthwhile for both me and the patient. This afternoon we had a tutorial that was unfortunately worthless. After that I stuck around to work on 1 of my 4 green sheets for this week. Green sheets are terrible and wonderful all at once. It is a 4 page form where you reflect on each of your new patients and describe all of the pathophysiology of their condition then relate that to their limitations and restrictions. Then you use research to plan your future treatment if they improve or deteriorate. Finally you describe how the pathophysiology can lead to every complication imaginable. It is terrible because it takes forever but wonderful because I feel that I have a much better understanding of the condition and issues involved after completing a green form. Good day but I'm exhausted!

5/12/2013

Happy Mother's Day!!
I celebrated mothers day by talking to my friend Christie who just had an adorable baby.  I also skyped several other friends and facebooked too.  I did a bit of homework and some chores too.  My current projects are a qualitative research project on osteoarthritis.  A discussion of a journal club process that we conducted earlier in the semester.  A 6 page reflection sheet for ever patient that I see as well as a planning sheet for the next time I see them.  I spent about an hour on the first one.  None on the second.  I did a bit of paperwork for my patients but I need charts that I can't take home to finish them.  Guess I'm going in early tomorrow.

5/10/2013

Ah Friday. My swimming buddy was away and I was excessively lazy so I missed my Friday morning swim. I did go to both of my classes. I felt that they were somewhat productive. 

This afternoon was all study. I have a group project due in 2 weeks so we are furiously trying to complete it so that we can edit and stop worrying about it. 

At 5 I called it a night and went rock climbing. We had a pretty hard climb tonight by the time we finished my hands were too weak to manipulate my chopsticks.... Which was a problem because we went out for Korean afterward. 

After dinner my friend and I were both looking for chocolate so we went to three different places before ending up at Max Brenner's for hot chocolate and a chocolate covered waffle. Lovely end to the week.

5/11/2013

I spent the whole day working footy.  I left early enough to stop for coffee on my way to the first game at 8.  Then I worked straight through till the last one ended at 5.  We had one loss and 3 wins. If you look at the score board our seniors team won by quite a lot.  There were quite a few injuries as well.  A few pulled hamstrings, a concussion, 2 sprained ankles, and a player who ran into the goal post and damaged his clavicle.  Believing that the clavicle injury was a break I sent him to the hospital.  He came back after being seen and said, "You're wrong it's not broken it's just fractured!".....:) I tried to explain that fracture means break but he wouldn't listen.  hahaha
After the game I was so tired that I came home, ate dinner  and was in bed at 8.  So tired!

5/9/2013

My blog is lame today. It was going to be fun but I got caught up researching Femoralacetabular impingement and now I'm quite sleepy.

I find FAI fascinating but what you should take away from this is that I am actually really excited about putting effort in and learning about physiotherapy. In my year and a half in PT school I have been trying to learn and preform well in all of my classes but this placement is the first time that I have been really excited about what I am doing. Between bad supervisors, dry lectures and being treated like a dummie I had almost forgotten why I wanted to do this program in the first place. Now with every patient I see, I strive to learn as much as I can about their condition and how I can best treat them. I'm getting to clinic early, working through lunch and finishing late in an effort to better myself... And I really don't care what my supervisors think so I ask tons of questions. Sometimes they tell me to look it up myself but most of the time they are fantastic. 

So I got to clinic at 7:30. Treated patients in the outpatient clinic, biked to the other hospital, and did fracture clinic this afternoon. We were a bit slow at the start so Jo(the evil genius head physio) taught us about everything from shoulders to infections. As one of our patients said today,"she's scary!" But I think she may be one of my favourite parts of clinic. She expects a good deal and is absolutely brilliant. 

I left fracture clinic late which means that I got to training late but made the most of my time there to be as helpful as possible. I got home at 9 and began researching the condition of interest with dinner. I continued to research until my eyelids were sagging at midnight..... Not because I have a project or assignment to do but because I wanted to.... Man I'm lame. 

5/8/2013

Man I totally had a productive day of treating patients.  I got home and had left over soup while doing research.  I worked on my group research project with Kat.  Then I planned my patient treatment for my patient tomorrow.  Then I tried to contact Tel Aviv University again.  I called them this time but I was after business hours.  I left a message but I have little hope of getting a call back.  I decided that I might need to brush up on my hebrew a bit so I downloaded a learn hebrew app.  I really hope that I can organize my placement soon.  I'm getting anxious about it.

5/7/2013

Clinic today was mostly fantastic. I started with hydro and a patient gave me a tray of cookies for orthodox Easter. 

I productively treated 1 patient. My other patient was quite unwell and unable to do any physio today. Right before I left a cheeky new physio made me quite angry and I grumped about it for a few hours. She was counter signing my notes because I saw a patient with her and not my supervisor. She decided to "correct" my report by saying the patient did not have 'a bilateral mastectomy for a history of stage III breast cancer involving the lymph nodes', she just had 'R+L breast reduction.' I think my version sounded much better but I guess I'm still in school...

I went for a swim on my way home. I felt slow and tired in the water. I think I need to train more that once a week.

We had a diner party tonight. Kat cooked. I did nothing. It was great. We played cards and had a lovely evening. 

5/6/2013

Outpatients this morning. My first patient didn't show up and my second patient showed up without having the surgery that she was supposed to have last Friday. Luckily for me that meant that I got to do more since she was ACL deficient instead of 3 days post reconstruction. This afternoon we practiced knee tests as a group. Quite fun. We were done early which meant that by the time I finished my paperwork it was 5pm. My paperwork is improving from last week but it is still overwhelming. My turn to make dinner. I made jalapeño cheese bread and tortilla soup. Spicy and delicious! Then I tried to finish my paperwork but laziness prevailed and I went to bed. Sigh paperwork during lunch again tomorrow.

5/5/2013

My weekend plans got a bit messed up this morning.  I flushed the toilet and the kitchen ceiling started raining.....
So I called the landloard, then the plumber.  We started out with bubbled plaster and dripping water and ended up a large hole.  The dripping water had actually been a leaking tap that had been rotting our ceiling all week and finally burst through this morning.  It's been drying out all day and we'll get it re-plastered next week.  
After dealing with the plumbing issues I skyped a bit.  Then I spent the rest of the day doing paperwork for clinic tomorrow.  We watched the footy game or rather Kat and Billy did.  I wore a hat and worked on my paperwork.  By 7, I was bored and gave up on the paperwork but felt to guilty to do much else so I wasted time and am heading to be early so that I can be up early for clinic tomorrow.

5/4/2013

Now that I am half way through my weekend let's takes some measurements and evaluate my progress.
R&E projects-1 part done on 1/3 projects --> work needs to be done
Cleaning my room-things organised -->vacuum tomorrow
Work-done!
Bike ride-30km of hills --> going again tomorrow
Skyping --> need to tomorrow
Running-ran 4miles to work

This morning I was the trainer for the under 18 team.  It was really close to my house.  Just over 2miles away, so I ran there.  I had two interesting experiences one player asked me to massage his coccyx.  I handed him the cream and told him that he could do it himself.  I don't think his anatomy is the best because he rubbed his low back.  I also had a broken nose.  It sprayed blood everywhere.  I got him cleaned up and sent him to the hospital.  The boys also got in a fight. It was almost hockey style fighting except only half the players noticed so the others continued playing. To bad the 3 goals that we got in the middle of the fight didn't count.  We didn't really need them because we won anyway.

After work I went on a short, hilly bike ride with Steph.  I had a fantastic ride and felt great.  She had a bad ride and felt accordingly, thus I was faster for once.

When I got home I settled in to do some work.  Before dinner I finished my Managerial Corporate Finance final.  I think that I am heading for an A in the class.  Official grades will be posted Sunday.

For dinner I made Broccoli and Eggplant pasta.  It was a little disappointing.  Good idea, bad recipe.  There was too much balsamic but hopefully I can modify it for next time.  I double checked the answers to my final after dinner and then made Coconut Ice cream.  Somehow I ran into the same problem again.  Great idea but bad recipe.  The Ice cream was really good but there was far too much shredded coconut so it wasn't a nice texture. Luckily I can modify that one too.

This evening has been chores and wasting time on the internet.  I really need to make a valent stab at my green forms before I go to bed.

5/3/2013

Friday at Uni.  I went swimming and went out to breakfast.  They we discussed patients that we have seen this week for 2 hours.  We had a journal club like session and chose an article to read for next week.  Then I went shopping.  My friend Ange bought shoes for the ball in 2 weeks and I bought earrings.  We looked at some other places too and I almost bought a dress.  It's beautiful but I need to save my pennies for a bike and not spend $250 on a dress when I already have one that works perfectly fine.  Ange gazed longingly at a watch that she wants for her birthday, I think that she is giving her husband the card with the exact specifications so that he can either get it or contribute toward the purchase. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing homework and was planning on studying all night but Kat dragged me to the pub at 5 to see a friend that has been out of the country. Our friends arrived about half an hour after us so we got to take up the entire sofa until they arrived.  Kat look a bit like something out of a crime novel.  I didn't want to drink so I had 2 pitchers of water and shared some chips.  I thought about being social and extending my group of friends at 8 but then immediately changed my mind and went home to do a bit more work on one of the 3 projects that I need to do this weekend.  Other things that I would like to do this weekend include cleaning my room, going to work, going for a bike ride, skyping and running.  We'll do a re-assessment on Sunday night to see how i've gone.

5/2/2013

Day 4 of Maddie's adventures in Musculoskeletal physiotherapy. I had several mini victories throughout the day. I treated a patient with ankle fracture and referred him to hydrotherapy. I also helped in the gym with the Thursday class. I completed all my notes and got a head start on my clinical reasoning forms. This afternoon I and my exceptionally good looking side kicks had our first show down with the evil monster Jo in the fracture clinic. Together we treated 10 patients in 3 hours. The fracture clinic is mostly a triage service for advice and onward referrals when patients have casts removed. We are handed a referral and have 10 minutes to find all relevant history, evaluate the patient, treat the patient, refer them if needed and write our notes. It's quite fast. And it's overseen by Jo the smartest, most demanding, most blunt physiotherapist you have ever seen. We all have different tactics of dealing with her but I think we have the upper hand for now.... Though she was quite stressed and a bit off her game today and she did keep us till 5:30.
It was dark and cold by the time I left clinic which I did not enjoy. I biked into the city to climb and go out to dinner. Climbing was demanding but refreshing. We found a new Malaysian restaurant for dinner it kicks the old Malaysian place's butt. It was amazing and quite in-expensive.

5/1/2013

I wish that these cotton candy clouds that greeted me on my way to clinic at 6:30 didn't mean rain later in the day.
Today clinic was 7:30-5:30. I don't think that is allowed but I was busy learning so I didn't mind. I had 2 more in patients and my first out patient today. It's thrilling it's like I'm a real PT I have my own case load and patients book in on my schedule.
We worked on clinical reasoning and planning for tomorrow until we were kicked out at 5:30pm. We are technically allowed to stay later but the supervisor told us to please go home and take the rest of the evening off.
It was dark by the time I got home:( and raining. Sigh. Long day. I am so unmotivated by the time I get home but I did a bit of work and looked at Tasmanian wild life before going to bed.