Clinic, Week 1

I don't know about all of you, but I am dead tired. Dead tired. Like all I want to do is sit on the couch. Clinic has been interesting this week. It's been really weird to get used to my CI. He treats a lot of spine patients and I just keep thinking of Halvaksz...I don't know that she would be impressed. We use modalities with pretty much every patient, few joint mobs (especially on spine patients, we use them on extremities more), and NO MANIPULATIONS.  No one in the clinic like manipulations at all.  Kind of crazy. I feel like my clinic is sort of old school. I don't think any one here thinks direct access and we probably get more prescriptions than just referrals.  It makes things interesting.

Favorite stories of the week: Day 2, I asked my CI in the morning if I could treat some patients. You know me, I have to get my hands on, so one day of observing was all I could handle.  He let me do some treatments and he had two evals, so I was going to do the first one. I walked out into the waiting room and gave my perfect introduction "Hi, my name is Nicole.  I am a student physical therapist. I''ll be working with you today. Is that ok?" "No."...Awkward silence. She went on to tell me she needed a "real physical therapist".  I told her that there would be a therapist in the room the whole time, he would be supervising, I wouldn't be working alone. He walked up and supported me in that, but she was dead set. No way. so I handed the chart to my CI and we walked in to the back so he could review the chart cause he hadn't reviewed it yet. We walked back out and he said "Ok. You ready".  Her response: "Well I don't know."...Awkward silence again.  After a bit of asking, she expressed "concern"- "Is she going to be watching?" My CI said, yes, she is here as a student, she will be observing- he really wasn't keen on not having me observe. After some really awkward talking through it, we finally went back to the room.  My CI started asking questions and the women got ALL mad because "she wrote this all down on the paperwork."  After a massage, she was way nicer. Interesting. She was really rude to the PTA who treated her later this week too...until the end. After the massage. She's kind of...one of a kind.
I don't know that I got any other awesomeness this week.  My brain is a bit...overloaded. So I don't have much else to say. Yeah. There ya go. Intro to clinic. I get sort of nervous every time that I go and introduce myself to a patient now.