Internship Day 1 - 2/10/25
For my first day of the internship, I had started at 8:00 am sharp on a cold morning day. I had mixed feelings going into my first day, but moreover felt excited and couldn’t wait what was planned ahead for me. As soon as I went inside, I was greeted by the amazing staff that work there and introduced myself and felt very confident going in and shaking their hands. Once I settled into the space they had provided me with, they wanted to get to know me more as a person and talked a little bit about myself while also getting to know them. Ann Brase and Jeremy Elliott were both onsite during my first day and were awesome about how they went about their daily routines with their patients. Many patients came in with a variety of injuries like rotator cuff, hip and knee replacements, ACL tears, and so on and so forth. The main thing that had caught my attention the most was how they were able to console the patients about the exercises they needed to perform onsite and at home. In addition, talking to them in a comforting manner to gain more trust and feel a sense of compassion toward the patient. The exercises that were performed were strictly for the patients needs and were very attentive during their whole rehab sessions. I was also very attentive during their session and made sure to ask as many questions as I could. The first day was more of a “getting to know the site” kind of thing but was also a hands-on experience. I can’t wait to learn more and meet new people with different injuries.
Internship Day 2 - 2/11/25
For my second day, it was fairly busy in the morning with patients coming in every 45 minutes. There was about a 2 and a half hour period of patients coming in with all sorts of injuries doing their rehab techniques. I started to put myself in the routine that Jeremy would do by checking in with the patients and asking them how they were doing. The first day was mostly learning and getting a feel for things, but now I seem to be getting more comfortable and confident with communicating to the patients about what they need. I’m still asking questions but more specific ones regarding if there are any preferences when it comes to the rehab. Techniques like ultrasound and scraping were used when the first patient came in and I was really engaged throughout the whole process. During the afternoon hours, less patients started coming with a couple of them working on their balance/core and others with shoulder exercises and strengthening.
Internship Day 3 - 2/12/25
For my third day, Iowa Physical Therapy was unfortunately closed due to the snow storm that had started early in the morning. Many patients had canceled their appointments considering the heavy snow that has been falling all day. For my day off, I will be looking over some of the rehab techniques that were performed by the patients and also understanding the mechanisms of the types of injuries the patients had.
Internship Day 4 - 2/13/25
For my fourth day, the first appointment started at 8:45 in the morning so I had more time to get here due to the snow storm that had created a mess on the streets and highways. Busy morning to start off the day with returning patients coming in that I had already met. They usually come in knowing what exercises to do so they end up going to where they need to be unless Jeremy tells them otherwise. I like to have conversations with the patients sometimes, talking to them about their day and how they’ve been. I think it’s always nice to see smiles on their faces when they get the care they need and when they end up leaving feeling more confident about themselves. During the afternoon, there was a new patient that came in regarding some sort of a shoulder injury. From the information that I know it looked like he had slipped and had fallen on his shoulder which was very unfortunate. We ended up running some tests on his shoulder by performing some light stretches, examining his range of motion and seeing his pain levels. Soon after, we had concluded that we needed to perform some STEM with an ice pack on the pain site to potentially reduce pain levels. Once that was completed, he seemed relieved and he would come back to see if there was any significant improvement. He was sent home with some light stretches that he could do at home and required that he would do no lifting in order for the healing process to progress faster at an efficient and timely manner.
Internship Day 5 - 2/14/25
For the last day of the week, the morning was pretty busy with mostly patients that had shoulder injuries. One of the patients that had come in last Monday came in again because he experienced even more pain on his shoulder. Apparently the tests that were done on him when he first came in had irritated his shoulder even more. Jeremy suggested not doing anything rehab specific due to the severity of the pain levels he was experiencing. A couple of hours later, the same patient returned with the shoulder injury after he had slipped in the snow. I was more hands on with this patient because he had needed STEM therapy and I was very familiar with how to use it. I think we are going to see this patient more frequently since he needs his arms to always be used and is also vital to everyday life. Other than that, the day went by pretty quick as more and more patients started coming in with their injuries. Jeremy and I would help them, making sure that their form is correct and have good posture. Many patients need to work on having a good posture because having a negative one could pose more injuries through the neck and shoulders. More stress is involved on the supraspinatus of the shoulder which overtime can cause it to tear.
Internship Day 7 - 2/18/25
For the second day of the second week of the internship, I came in at 8:45am which was our first patient of the day. He was a regular patient that would come in most of the days out of the week and already knew what to do when he arrived. Usually Jeremy will have him perform new exercises for him, but for today, he had him do his usual stuff like using the bike, resistance band work, and hip mobility exercises. He seems to be doing better at the exercises every time he comes in but there are other days where he feels some sort of pain or he’s limping. After he left, all of his other morning patients had canceled on him so I didn’t need to be back until 1 in the afternoon. As soon as the afternoon came around, that was when we got busier as patients kept coming in early which was good but made the other patients wait. We had some with all kinds of injuries, one of them came in with vertigo, which was one patient that I could not examine with.