Personal Narrative: My Clinical Experience

“How can I be good again? I just lost my wife and son in a car accident. There's nothing in life that can cheer me up. I have become an alcoholic who is now jobless.” I said. My Therapist, Dr. Newman, told me “Trust me, Mr. Smith. Only time can heal your wounds if you allow it to. Well, that's the end of the session, and I want to recall the accident that occurred so we can talk about it tomorrow.”

Week three in clinical was difficult for me, I had a great experience overall but I hated seeing and holding a baby that had passed away at 21 weeks. To know what the family could possibly be going through was heartbreaking. I wouldn’t exactly know what to do if I was with the patient and her family exactly. I do know that I did place her in the room when she was admitted to triage. I do feel good about seeing the scenario play out, while being a student rather than being in the field alone. Other than that I was able to see the beginning stage of labor as well as a C-section. Everyone was so bent out of shape on making sure I eat and that I don’t faint, but it seriously wasn’t bad. As a matter of fact I was too intrigued with the mother rather

The clinic that I am doing my clinical rotation is a small family medical office with one physician assistant and one doctor. It is located in Collier County Naples, Florida. Naples is considered as one of the richest city in Florida with a diverse ethnic group like Caucasian, African America, Asian, Latinos, Haitian, and much more. They see any patients start from 6 years old. Most of the patients who come to the clinic don’t have a medical insurance. They are self-paid. My preceptor is a professor of physician assistant at Nova University in Florida over 20 years.

“Oh I got my heart right here. Oh I got my scars right here…” With the slow beat of The Weeknd, I took a right onto the highway. Where was I going? I didn’t know. I was just going to drive my thoughts away. Peering down into my windows, the moon shone on my interior, lighting up everything. It was just me, the moon, and my freedom. I turned the radio louder to blast out my thoughts and just think about the song. I do this therapeutically. Driving makes me feel better, especially when I have no certain destination or deadline. My only goal is to chase the moon in an eternal game of tag, but for some reason I’m always “it”.

I have had multiple clinical practices, however, out of all the experiences during my shifts, there is one particular event that holds great meaning for me. This event happened on my fifth clinical day of this semester, which was the day I first dealt with two clients.

My first week went really well! I was definately both nervous and excited on the first day. I was nervous because I wasn't sure how the clinic would run and I quickly learned that it is a very fast paced clinic. My CI sees patients every 15 minutes and he is both the only PT there and the owner of the clinic. I have been learning a lot about PT treatments as well as the buisness side of the PT clinic. He has a lot of PT aides that help with exercises and setting patients up with ice and stim ect. The fast paced clinic was definately something I had to get used to. I was a little overwhelmed when we would just start with a patient and a new patient would walk in the door. However, there is a very good flow in the clinic and everyone is always

Sept 10 & Sept 17 Sept 24th: On the 10th, it was orientation day because it was the first day for clinical. Gretta took us around BMC. It was nice to walk around and see each floor. We go our picture taken for our ID. On the 17th and 24th, we were not allowed to be on the floor yet because our ID was not ready.

Today in clinical, I offered a male patient to perform a full bed bath. It was my first time performing a full bed bath on a male and the thought of this made me feel a little nervous because I had only practiced this task in the simulation lab and the thought of performing peri-care on the male gender was intimidating. I began to gather my items and throughly think about how I would normally perform a bed bath on a female and the difference of genital areas. As I brought the items into the room, my patient was friendly and helpful in directing his preferences of which areas he wanted to be washed first. His friendly personality made me calm down in a situation where I would normally be on my toes, as I was not thinking about my

My goal for clinical experiences is to apply what I have learned throughout my semesters to a clinical setting. I want to become more competent in my skills. I want to be able to look at a patient and identify clues that help me create a focus assessment. I also want to be able to use the patient medication to identify some adverse effects to create a preventative plan of care. My goals are to become more structured with my care plans. I want to make them more patient centered and more focused on initial issues that the patient might have then move it towards preventive methods instead of having my preventative methods first . I also want to become more confident in preparing and starting IV. I know that perfecting starting an IV will come

I was very nervous before I went to the floor. I had no idea what have to do and how to start my day with my patient. When I first entered to onto the floor I realized the unit was little different than the usual floor. The floor was so quiet and basically there very few people were outside of the room. Once we got a tour of the unit I got to attend group with some patients. I was still nervous and lots of thought were running in my mind. I was looking for my patient and trying to figured out how should I talked to her so she feels comfortable with me. My actual patient was trying to ignore me, so I sat in the room with other patient and started to talk to one patient. I was feeling confident as I started to talk to her, because she was responding

The healthcare field is constantly changing and progressing, with new theories on diseases, technological advances, patient care trends, new and revised protocols, medical breakthroughs and research findings. Added to that are the vast amounts of information affecting how we practice and provide patient care. Continuing learning ensures me competency in practice and increasing my commitment to my profession and

I appreciate the opportunity to provide care for an individual at the most intimate level.

With my first seven hours being at the Care Clinic, I tried to make the best of the experience. I decided to get more involved with the patients, so they can open up with me. I share a lot about me as I greet the patient or I take cue from what the patient initially said. This worked because few patients really open and talk about their health, personal issues, and concerns. The patients felt my sincerity by their body language from a smile, shaking my hand or follow-up questions after I conducted my patient teaching.

A self of the therapist issue in my training is having a soft spot for one of the mother’s in my supervised visitation sessions. I am aware that doing supervised visitation is not a therapeutic session but I was told by my internship site that this would be a good experience to have. Before I met with this family I had a front and back page of notes of the background of the family and why the children were taking away from the mom. I automatically felt sorry for these kids and expect for them to be angry during the visitation. I also expected the Mom to be rude and in a way try to get over on me and break the rules because of my age. But once I met the family and sat through the first half of their visit the experience was different. Maybe

After having been exposed some of the top collaborators from all over the world through my summer internship at a local biomedical research center, I learned about the many sides of working in the medical field: not just treating others directly, but the series of intricate networks in which people collaborate to find cures and treatments of diseases. This process has always fascinated me, and it was exactly what I found on my first trip to the University of Michigan. Upon arrival to the first appointment for my brother’s epilepsy, we were visited by a series of nurses before meeting Dr. Simon Glynn. Once we had met, he asked us a series of questions, examined my brother, and set up appointments for us with other practitioners so they could treat my brother in a holistic manner, with each doctor specializing in their own field. From this point on, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by all of Dr. Glynn’s work, especially that with the Human Epilepsy Project. This type of collaboration and research is exactly what I seek to be a part of one day. At the University of Michigan, clubs like the Neuroscience Students Association and the Biology Student Alliance make this possible by providing networking opportunities, offering seminars, and giving exposure to