My first day of my OT Level 1 Fieldwork in Adult Phys Dys

Today was my first day of my adult physical dysfunction Level 1 Fieldwork, which is two weeks long. I was sooo nervous this morning! Adult phys dys is way outside my comfort zone. I can handle a baby with a ton of tubes, but an adult who needs their shoulder moved? AUGH! Scary! I felt a little unprepared because even though I had made like 6 pages of cheatsheets (cough), I had forgotten to focus on the most important thing, which is neuro!

I am doing this rotation with one other girl in my class, Marla. She is really quiet and really sweet. She and I were each assigned different OTs, but we are in the same little neuro gym, which is a locked unit, so you have to know a code to leave. (Only because patients can be confused, not dangerous.)

My OT is named Denise and she is really nice. She is also an UT alum. I got to see one child and a ton of geriatric patients with her! Just observing, though, obviously. Some of the patients are grumpy (because they are in pain and deconditioned!!), but most of them are so cute you want to eat them up with a spoon! Which is kind of a gruesome expression, when you think about it.

I think my hospital got confused about JCAHO, because they seemed to think Marla & I needed to go through new employee orientation, which is almost a full day and requires about five hours of video watching on stuff like how to dispose of hazardous waste. After we questioned the need for this considering we were primarily observing, never alone, and only there 10 days, the human resources people made some phone calls and it turned out we only needed to fill out a few forms and watch a few videos. I am pretty sure JCAHO is the same anywhere, requirement wise, and I know none of the other hospitals seem to require this for a two week rotation, so I don’t know where the problem really lies!

Beyond that, it was a nice experience. It was good to see that adult phys dys is not magical, and that there is actually the possibility of me learning how to do it. I have two problems. One is that I lack confidence in my ability to handle “hands-on” experiences. The second problem is that I’m a softie. If a patient doesn’t want to get out of bed or finish their exercises, I’m like “Oh. Ok” when really I should be like “IF YOU EVER WANT TO BE INDEPENDENT IN YOUR ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIFE YOU BETTER GET THIS BOOTIE UP!!!!!!!!!!!” Ok not quite so strongly worded, though.

One thing that really rocked today is that I got to see a patient with no prior knowledge of her medical history, and I could tell she had a left CVA! I knew because the left side of her face and the right side of her body had hemiparesis, and she had aphasia, which is typical of a left CVA. I was really excited to be able to diagnose that.

Overall it was a nice day, not too scary. I will be there 7am to 3:30pm every day, although I have plenty of projects to work on at night unfortunately, and need to get prepared for the Tennessee Occupational Therapy Association annual conference, which will be in Nashville this Friday and Saturday! I’m trying to win a scholarship so I hope anyone who likes me will send good vibes this way. Also, y’all should hope I have the right fashion sense and wear an appropriate outfit to TOTA conference, because I’ll just admit it, I’m even stressing out over what to wear! I’m ashamed. Sorry.

Tomorrow I’ll experience (observing) an OT helping patients with their morning ADLs, so I’m excited! And scared! Again!

Oct 09, 2007 | Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 1