Since entering college, I have changed an indescribable amount. When starting in the program as well as school I was extremely insecure and was not sure how I needed to study in order to succeed. After my first semester in the program I spent a semester in remediation, which at the time was the worst possible thing that happened to me. However, looking back at it now it was the best possible thing. I figured out how I learned, failing helped me succeed in the rest of my college career. I know I am not the same person that entered college, maybe physically but mentally am incomparable.
I have done many things in the last three years that I never would have thought I ever would have done. First, in the spring of my junior year I presented in a breakout session on Ampersand day about research myself and Laura had worked very hard on. Presenting in front of fifty people was something I never would have thought I would have done but pushed me outside my box and forced me to become more confident. Second, in the spring of my senior year I traveled with Kings College to London, England with over fifty other Athletic Training students from around the country. That experience was one that I will forever treasure because I met some awesome new friends as well as new knowledge that I will be able to apply to my work. Third, in the spring of my senior year I presented in the student showcase ALONE in front of over 300 people on Ampersand day about traveling to London. This experience was one I never saw myself doing, entering college I was never comfortable in front of a large group of people and now I am able to do it with some ease. Before presenting I thought I was going to throw up but when I got on stage I felt a lot better and was able to do my presentation with ease. One thing I am most thankful for are my preceptors, friends and professors who encouraged me to be the person I am today. Melissa first pushed me and instructed me on how to be a great AT. Chaypin, Joe and Alex allowing me to be on my own and make decisions throughout rehabs and evaluations. D.C. for making me take the big leap back into the program. Beth for yelling at me and making me gain confidence. Lastly, all the friends I have made in the program, Sam and Colin for being my buddies through the program. And Sam for the countless hours we studied for exit exams. After graduation I will be heading to Puerto Rico to be an assistant AT for the Puerto Rican Collegiate League. I am very excited for the opportunity and am excited to see where it takes me after returning. I included one of the first pictures I took entering college and one of my senior pictures I took only a couple weeks ago. I was added a couple pictures from Ampersand Day!
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My skills communicating with physicians and other healthcare providers has grown a lot since starting this school year. Experiencing the Ortho clinic multiple times over the last year and having Dr. Handy rotations has help tremendously with that. While doing the Ortho clinics I had to take the do an evaluation of the patient then communicate it back to Dr. Hannula to give him the proper background about the injury. After the clinic was completed, I also had to do claim forms, new patient forms, type up demographics, and scanning in claim forms to Melissa or faxing new forms and demographics to Dr. Hannula’s office. Then after everything was sent, I called his office to make appointments for the patients. I had to communicate with his office and with my patient in order to smoothly schedule appointments. Calling his office and setting up appointments was a new experience for me, which will help me a lot in the future in case I have to set up appointments for my athletes. In order to communicate with his office appropriately there were many steps that needed to be done prior to the visit, the demographics and new patient forms. As well as on our side, claim forms needed to be scanned in, in order to athletes to go see Dr. Hannula in office or have X-rays or MRI’s done.
While rotating with Dr. Handy, I learned how important communications is with other healthcare providers for refers or even with other doctors in the office. While I was with Dr. Handy there were many times when he needed to refer a patient to a specialist and was able to do it without a thought. Dr. Handy has relationships with other specialists around the area and he is able to communicate to his patients who they need to go see in order to get the proper care. I believe that one of the main reasons’ communication needs to be so strong between an AT and a physician is to have trust in the AT as well as the other way around. Having trust in each other will allow for a smooth recovery process of the patient, the physician to have trust in the AT so they believe they are following proper protocol as well as the athlete to trust that the AT understands what they are doing throughout the process. Communication between the athlete, AT and physician is necessary in case of any changes for a rehab and to follow the post-surgical protocol for optimal success of the athlete. This weekend was very crazy! As a senior class we had the opportunity to experience the AAU national wrestling tournament. There were 38 elementary aged teams from all over the nation. We not only did experience the tournament but also leading up to the tournament we had to do the administrative part. We created a Policy’s and Procedures manual as well as created evaluation sheets and a contact for the event.
The tournament started on Friday night, we are drove down and were able to get there before the tournament started to look around and assess the situation. The tournament started fast, and the rush did not stop until it was over. There were 8 matts in the main gym and the 2 additional matts in a practice gym. We had a great system going, in the middle of the eight matts in the main gym were the tables and workers, there were four corners. Four of us were in the main gym and the other two were in the practice gym. It worked out so well, someone was in each corner scanning three matts at the time but sharing two of the three mats that were being scanned, so it someone had to run out there was always someone else there. To start off the tournament Sam and I were in the practice gym and one little boy got hit in the nose and started bleeding, but it was no normal nose bleed, it would not stop. So, Sam tried and tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too much for one person to handle. I tried putting skin lube in his nose, but nothing was working. One of the coaching while I was helping was trying to tell me what to do and to fold the nose plug and put it up his nose, his nose was not very big, and it folded would not fit or stay in. I tried and tried to explain to him we could not put the plug in his nose until the bleeding slowed down. The bleeding started coming out of his mouth and was dripping out of his nose. We finally got the bleeding to slow down with 10 seconds left on the clock, we stopped blood time then started to clean the boy, it was everywhere it felt like we had been working on this boy for 30 minutes. We got a nose plug in, but the coaches were worried it would come out, he only had 14 seconds left and they told us to tape it to his head, so we put gauze and powerflex and taped it to his head. So, we did and 4 seconds into the match his nose started bleeding again and blood time ran out and the boy was disqualified. Which brings me to my strengths and weaknesses, I handled that situation well with the boy but not with the coaches I should have asked the coaches to step away and let us try to stop the bleeding. However, when an older man is breathing down your back and trying to tell you demandingly what to do it’s hard to do. If I am ever in a position like that again I know now how to handle it appropriately. I started off this week on Tuesday with a very large accomplishment, taking my Board of Certification exam. I was a very difficult exam but am hoping I did well on the exam.
We were supposed to start our clinical appraisal this week, however, were unable to do so. Brianne had us write down topics that interested us and she would assign the papers that she wanted us to appraise. We have spent a lot of our time in the past two weeks looking at the checklists and scales at are used during the appraisal process. On Friday we looked at the PEDRO scale. We went through an article and evaluated if it checked off on the PEDRO scale. The PEDRO scale was developed by the Physiotherapy Evidence Database to determine the quality of clinical trials. The checklist consists of 10 yes or no questions. While working on the checklist I did get confused with some of what the questions were asking. The article had to spell it out if it was a yes or a no, it either had it or it did not. We were put into pars and worked on the checklist together. I was assigned to work with Katie, we were only given about 10 minutes to read the article, which was not enough it. While Katie and I were going down the checklist we really realized we had no clue what the checklist was even asking on some of the questions. We felt like we were thrown in the dark. We ended class on Wednesday evaluating and would finish and discuss the checklist on Friday with our answers. On Friday while we were discussing we agreed that the article either was a 5 or 6. While discussing the answers some of us were confused how they were no’s when we had yeses. The questions on the list are not explanatory so understanding why something was no over yes was a bit difficult. Last semester I found an interest in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, so this semester I was hoping in do more research on the illness as it compares to athlete’s heart. Two very similar conditions, with two different out comes. I did research on the gold standard test to confirm the illness, but now I would like to know more about the two illnesses compared to one another. I would really like to learn more about athlete’s heart and how it resolves itself after disqualifying from activity. |