Personal Narrative: My First Clinical Rotation

My OB clinical experience has been great! I have gained a lot of experience and knowledge from my clinical professor and the nurses on the unit. I have learned so much. In the beginning I felt confident going in and talking to my patients but not caring for them. I was not confident about reading the EFM strips or even touching a patient in active labor due to their pain. Even at the end I still was not comfortable dealing with patients in extreme pain I think that’s a learning

This clinical rotation provided the opportunity to also learn and experience the business side of laboratory medicine and healthcare. From my current role as an employee at the lab I had assisted in the distribution and un-packaging of supplies that were ordered, but now I had the opportunity to assist in the actual process of placing and order and managing a budget. The functional clinical laboratory is just as much of a business as any other, requiring proper budgeting and management of supplies to eliminate waste. Also through this clinical experience and my job as a phlebotomist I have been able to work with the processing department which manages patient accounts and insurance for any outpatient specimen that comes through lab doors.

My first Physical therapy observation experience was at TIRR Memorial Hermann in the Texas Medical Center. The therapy done here were for inpatients who went through a brain or spinal cord injury. On my first day I did not know what I was going in for. I only thought that PT was about orthopedic rehabilitation but in reality there is therapy for everything.

My second clinic rotation is internal medicine and I’ve had many encounters, both with patients and colleagues, which have made me pause and reflect. One of those encounters, in particular, will still be on my mind long after I finish typing this reflective journal. The patient at the center of it all is a lady I’ll refer to from here on as “Mrs. Flowers.” Mrs. Flowers is an 81 year old female with dementia and diabetes. She arrived on our unit with a diabetic foot infection that had progressed from a simple toe ulcer to wet gangrene. Over the last 2-3 months, gangrenous changes encompassed the distal half of her left foot. During pre-rounds, our medical team unanimously agreed that we would contact surgery for a consult. At time, it was obvious

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

For some students, in which I include myself, learning is much easier when is experienced in a real setting as the community clinic. I learn the most from reflecting on my own mistakes and this was a great opportunity to make a lot of mistakes and reflect on them. While doing my second patient observation, I remember thinking on how great experience the clinic was and how great I felt about reinforcing once again how bad I want to become a doctor of physical therapy. If I had to change one thing about this activity, it would be either having more patients to treat and observe or doing it again during the summer semester. I know there was a lot of work put into it by the third years and the professors and in my case, the outcome was significantly

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.

Seiler says her favorite part of being a Physical Therapist is having a relationship with the patients she works with because she gets to see them normally for a longer period and having the satisfaction when you see that you helped someone in a positive way. Although, some patients can be aggravating when improvement is not seen. Often this is because patients fail to do their home program. On an average day she sees about seven to eight patients one every hour. She enjoys the pace that the clinic she is currently at because often other places have you see more patients in shorter amounts of time. Some places have more patients in secessions of 30 minutes with a Physical Therapy Assistant and will only see the Physical Therapist for short amount of time. Seiler believes with more time she is able to build a relationship and gain a better understanding of how to explain things to patients as well as what works well for them. It also allows the patient to trust the therapist and keeps them complying with doing the exercises. The other

The sharp scratch of pencil lead sprinting across thick layers of paper, rapid rustles of flipping pages, and the neurotic tapping of pens on hard wooden desk surfaces are sounds that I grew very accustomed to during my junior year of high school. I was taking a class called Clinical Rotations, which allowed me to rotate through different units at two major San Antonio hospitals. Being constantly surrounded by illness, chaos, and frigid sterility wore heavily on my angst-ridden, seventeen year old self. But despite the stressful surroundings and slightly depressing aura, it was during these rotations that I met someone who truly changed my life.

I knew what to expect and it was nice to be able to help the nurses as much as possible. The wound care team really does make a great impact on their patients and they grow a bond with each and every one. Wound healing is a process that takes a long time and each week the staff sees patients sometimes two or three times weekly. I really enjoyed spending time with wound care and I am glad I got to go back and learn more with them. It was a great experience and something I will not forget during my time as a student

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

One of my first experiences working with patients was during my junior year in college. I

I think she should have tried to be more of a teacher instead of an instructor. I know being a nurse practitioner vs being a registered nurse we concentrate on different aspects of the same thing. For example, with a patient with hyper-calcium the registered nurse would concentrate on the diagnosis in terms of the client’s risk and making sure certain things are done such a tele-monitor, fall precautions and fluids. The nurse practitioner would need to go further and look at the labs values & physical assessment to try and find the reason for the hypercalcium. As a registered nurse I have to admit I do not know what all the highs and lows in the lab values and its correlation as to what it means as far as an illness the patient may be having. Usually the secondary diagnosis is spelled out for us by the doctor “hypercalcemia secondary to multiple myeloma”. I realize now, that this part of a differential diagnosis has not been taught to use in this course nor will it be in any future course that I can see, so I will have to learn it on my

My work within the database was rewarding, and completing tasks at the hospital was also enjoyable. Getting to know the receptionists at the front desk was nice, and they were able to help me locate and track down patients that I needed to see. Assertiveness was needed when dropping off research kits, especially in the chemotherapy area, because the nurse of the patient needed to be located in order to find where the blood sample was kept, times needed to be coordinated with multiple nurses, and patients needed to be found to receive their questionnaire. I was compassionate towards patients when they were not feeling up to filling out the questionnaire by giving them a prepaid envelope to take home and mail back whenever they got a chance to work on it. I also followed up with participants over the phone to make sure they remembered to fill out the questionnaire and to see if they had any questions. Many times, the patients thought that I knew their doctor and would ask me medical questions. I handled these situations well because I was able to find contact information for the doctor or nurse they needed to call. Additional skills were gained through lab meetings. Everyone in the lab attended a two-hour meeting every Friday where we talked about the assigned articles from the week and critically analyzed studies. Valuable critical thinking skills were gained after reading many scientific health psychology articles and hearing what others took away from the articles. Articles

I learned how to treat a patient as they came in for a scan. The RT’s (radiologic technologist) also showed me different things and even how to read the basics of some scans. I learned the different reasons for scans and why contrast is used.