Start of Week 2

So more and more each day I am with my CI, I can see why he hates one of the other PTs. I am not really a fan of the other PTs there but do love the PTA, Patti. As much as I hate to admit it, I truly appreciate good documentation. The one other PT documents ROM measurements in percentages (yes, percentages) and has a ton of goals (record of 47 for one initial eval) plus she's not the most professional and has that fake-happy attitude...I think the most annoying thing is how she lets the timers run out, beeping for a really long time - silly, I know, but really really is starting to get to me. The other PT does some weird things and her assessments don't say much about what is actually going on with the patient and documents exercises not really well (I have no idea what she does with them but certainly doesn't do any manual therapy is for sure). The PTA, Patti, is pretty cool and really smart. I can see why everyone gets along with her.


Today presented some more unique patients...one initial eval pt is an overweight gentleman who apparently has a herniated disc in his lumbar spine from picking up a groundball since he coaches and plays baseball; he flat out told us that he didn't care what we had to say about the causes of his symptoms and what we were attempting to do with therapy - he just wanted a quick fix and doesn't really care about the exercises. So it'll be interesting to work with grumpy I guess. He's kinda like another patient we have who refuses to do any real exercises - just wants heat and stim for his neck pain even though he has muscular and joint restrictions in his ROM.

Had some more patients in aquatic therapy today, however, still learning about the routines they do and where to start patients out. One gentleman started feeling nauseous near the end of his session so that was cut short - very odd but guess we'll see if it happens again, I was so ready to grab the little trashcan for him to throw up in, haha.

I don't think I knew there'd be so many patients with partial menisectomy procedures that were such lazy people...my CI has warned me about being optimistic about them. And as much as I hate to admit he's right, he probably is...learning a lot about insurances and what (not always, but usually) the type of insurance along with MOI leads you to assume about the patients coming into the clinic.

O, and lumbar disc replacement? Yea, have a pt with that who also happens to be a PT...she's pretty advanced but "has pain still" (MOI was transferring a pt using stand-pivot transfer). She likes me but pretty sure she can do more than what she leads people to believe...plus no real info on her surgery as it's still in clinical trials really. Fun times.

Another interesting patient (there are a couple actually, that I like). A lot of patients with Parkinson's Disease which is cool to use Neuro stuff and a patient with a hemiarthroplasty/total shoulder replacement is another interesting case. Learning a lot of manual techniques and figuring out the best way for me to do them as my CI is a lot taller and has bigger hands than I do (plus about 60lbs).

Looking forward to doing some marketing with my CI and learning more about the billing/insurance stuff.