Its been 5 weeks already.
At the beginning of the 5 weeks I was not pumped about being in the AMU. I was definitely thinking of strategies how to make it through and learn what I can to apply it to other areas of practice.
And the first couple of weeks were rough. I was not really liking it, and the skills and working through everything was challenging.
But near the end of the placement things got a lot better. Firstly, the hospital itself became a lot less intimidating. I feel more confident interacting with patients from a therapist-patient relationship. As I gained more confidence in my skills I noticed my confidence with the patients also improved. If a patient is putting up resistance to my questions or treatment I have strategies to work around it and deal with it without becoming flustered and thrown off.
Over the 5 weeks I have also gained a lot of medical knowledge. I am comfortable with a patient's chart and getting the medically relevant information to physio from it. I am also more comfortable with some of the more common conditions and the contraindications to treatment that go a long with them.
My charting has vastly improved and what was once a struggle to get all the patient's information from the session down on paper after has become much much easier.
My suctioning and chest physio skills have also greatly improved. I remember seeing a suctioning on my second day and being worried that I would never be able to do one that quickly and effidciently. And I remember having to suction a patient on my own for the first time. I was pretty hesitant and worried that I was missing a step or doing it wrong (I wasn't), but now I am suctioning without a hesitation.
The main theme here is that with more exposure to the environment and situations I was able to build my clinical reasoning skills, technical skills and general confidence. By doing so a whole new world was opened up. I was in the camp previously that thought all acute care was just getting somebody up to walk and subsequently that doing that day in and day out would be pretty monotonous and boring. But after having a rock-star-physio preceptor, it so much more. Yes, patients that come in can be pretty boring and all they need is a balance assessment and a walk. But there is a lot more to be involved in. The complicated patients are the best because there is no protocols to follow in the AMU. Basically if you can reason it out that the treatment you are doing for the patient would be beneficial then you can go ahead and do it. There is a lot of problem solving and applying knowledge in clinical reasoning, which makes it way more interesting.
Beyond that there is chest physio. Before this placement I had about zero interest in it. I didn't like the though of pounding on chests and sucking out gunk from people's lungs. But there is something about it that is pretty satisfying. Its awesome to see the difference immediately you can make with a treatment. for example you hear coarse crackles when you listen to a chest then you do some percussions and suction and Voila! they are breathing better their chest sounds better and their oxygen levels have increased.
I am not sure if I want to work in the AMU when I graduate, but this clinical placement has shifted my perspective on acute medicine.
At the beginning of the 5 weeks I was not pumped about being in the AMU. I was definitely thinking of strategies how to make it through and learn what I can to apply it to other areas of practice.
And the first couple of weeks were rough. I was not really liking it, and the skills and working through everything was challenging.
But near the end of the placement things got a lot better. Firstly, the hospital itself became a lot less intimidating. I feel more confident interacting with patients from a therapist-patient relationship. As I gained more confidence in my skills I noticed my confidence with the patients also improved. If a patient is putting up resistance to my questions or treatment I have strategies to work around it and deal with it without becoming flustered and thrown off.
Over the 5 weeks I have also gained a lot of medical knowledge. I am comfortable with a patient's chart and getting the medically relevant information to physio from it. I am also more comfortable with some of the more common conditions and the contraindications to treatment that go a long with them.
My charting has vastly improved and what was once a struggle to get all the patient's information from the session down on paper after has become much much easier.
My suctioning and chest physio skills have also greatly improved. I remember seeing a suctioning on my second day and being worried that I would never be able to do one that quickly and effidciently. And I remember having to suction a patient on my own for the first time. I was pretty hesitant and worried that I was missing a step or doing it wrong (I wasn't), but now I am suctioning without a hesitation.
The main theme here is that with more exposure to the environment and situations I was able to build my clinical reasoning skills, technical skills and general confidence. By doing so a whole new world was opened up. I was in the camp previously that thought all acute care was just getting somebody up to walk and subsequently that doing that day in and day out would be pretty monotonous and boring. But after having a rock-star-physio preceptor, it so much more. Yes, patients that come in can be pretty boring and all they need is a balance assessment and a walk. But there is a lot more to be involved in. The complicated patients are the best because there is no protocols to follow in the AMU. Basically if you can reason it out that the treatment you are doing for the patient would be beneficial then you can go ahead and do it. There is a lot of problem solving and applying knowledge in clinical reasoning, which makes it way more interesting.
Beyond that there is chest physio. Before this placement I had about zero interest in it. I didn't like the though of pounding on chests and sucking out gunk from people's lungs. But there is something about it that is pretty satisfying. Its awesome to see the difference immediately you can make with a treatment. for example you hear coarse crackles when you listen to a chest then you do some percussions and suction and Voila! they are breathing better their chest sounds better and their oxygen levels have increased.
I am not sure if I want to work in the AMU when I graduate, but this clinical placement has shifted my perspective on acute medicine.
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