Today was my last day of my internship, and it feels surreal to be saying that. The whole experience went by so fast, but I learned so much in such a short period of time. Honestly I look at the human body in a completely different way from when I first started, and I even see myself and my own training in a completely new light. I can not thank Michaela enough for everything she has done for me. Not only in helping me heal over the summer, but teaching me so much, and giving me such a wonderful experience.
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A few weeks ago the last Game of Thrones season started, and it had a surprising affect on the office. Kind of like march madness, the office started a pool predicting who would live and who would die by the end of the season. Like a real life deadpool! Sadly I haven't seen the series so I don't really understand what they are talking about, but maybe this will inspire me to watch it. We have a patient currently who managed to watch the entire series in 4 weeks, so maybe I'll give that a try.
What’s lunchtime like? Lunch isn't a set thing at marathon. Because of the way my hours are set up, I only eat there on Mondays, and on Mondays, I'll go to the pizza place two doors down and eat there. However, I do often see people eating in the office area. This is because Marathon is on a half hour patient schedule, which means that the therapists change the patient they are working with every half hour. This schedule means that each therapist has a different schedule, and have their breaks at different times. So while I may be working, another person could be in the back eating. This means that we don't have connected lunches, and most people will use their half an hour break to either catch up on work, or watch something on their phone. There can still be chatting between therapists that may be in the back at the time, the conversations are often about specific patients, something going on in their personal lives, or what shows they are currently watching (It's a lot of Game of Thrones talk right now). Because each therapist controls their own hours, there is a free and flexible feeling to the back office, which leads to more relaxed conversations, but less structure or forced social time.
Is there an endpoint to learning at your job? Do you want there to be? Because PT is part of the medical field, there is no such thing as knowing everything. A major part of a therapist's job is staying up to date on all current studies and developments relating to treating patience. For example, recently there has been a study published on whether pain should be acceptable while treating a patient. These types of studies, and keeping up with these developments help therapists to give the best possible care to patience. Honestly, I love the fact that there is always more learning to be done. I feel like the constant development of techniques and practice keeps the field evolving. As well as makes the work all the more interesting.
How does this industry sustain itself economically? Physical Therapy clinics sustain themselves by charging a fee to all their customers. Because therapy is a health related expense, most of our patience have some form of insurance that pays for their treatment. Insurance can make it more difficult to help a patient, as many insurance agencies will only pay for a curtain amount of treatments, and if the injury is a work related injury. Many Insurance companies will only pay for enough treatment to have the patient be able to go back to work, and nothing more.
Today, Michaela was unfortunately sick, and because my high school had the MCAS today, I had a full day off. So I decided to use the free time to go for a hike. The wether was nice, but the tress were still bear which was unfortunate. My legs were killing me for fencing practice afterwards.
Select a story that sticks out to you from your time on the job so far The story that sticks out to me the most over my first month, without violating HIPPA, is the time when we had a 2 week postnatal mother come into the clinic. This was one of the most unique patients I have met because her abdomen had actually separated due to the pregnancy. The separation was noticeable enough that Michaela was able to press three fingers into the women's stomach without any resistance. I like telling people about this experience because it always makes people squirm when they hear about, and always sticks out for when people ask for stories.
This Thursday was Bruce Stockton's last Day. Bruce is a PT student at BU who was with marathon for his clinicals (Basically his residency). Bruce was a really fun guy to work with, and as part of his clinical, he had to give an inservice on his last day. An inservice is basically a presentation that has to teach the other therapists working there something new. Bruce did his on feet and shoe wear. I wish Bruce the best of luck as he continues his clinicals on his journey to becoming a PT.
Why did the people who work at your job decide to work there? To answer this question I interviewed most of the therapists at Marathon and it was surprising how similar their answers were. While 2 out of the 6 people I interviewed said they decided to become a therapist simply because it interested them, the other 4 all said that they wanted to become therapists after a traumatic injury, which is interesting since that's the exact same reason why I want to become a doctor.
Today I was taught about Needling. Needling is very similar to acupuncture because both techniques use needles; However, in needling therapists use electric shocks to stimulate specific muscles in order to more or less reset the muscles and nerves in a specific area. This was a really cool therapy technique that I hadn't even heard of before the internship. The weird part about the experience was I expected to be freaked out by the needles, as the therapist uses the needle to feel around the muscle to find the right spot, which sounds very disturbing, but was actually fascinating when it was explained to me.
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