Reflection #2

Stephanie Ortega
2-11-09
Reflection #2
Internship

Today was my second time going to my internship site. Going in the morning, kind of boring, nothing really to do. But it was weird I found two patients there. What I usually do in the morning is read the employee handbook, so that’s what I did until around 9a.m. until Mark, the physical therapist I follow around, he was all set and done taking care of the two patients. Then I remembered that Mrs. Burke wanted us to get the history from our internship place. So I started to ask around, it sucked because everyone in there doesn’t have anymore than 5 years working there. So Rita, one of the employees, told me to look in the employee handbook, so that’s what I did. I remembered how I had read it, and when I started to read it, I was thinking about how I am going to write a one page reflection on half a page of the history of the company. I copied it down and asked Rita who has the longest time working there, about the company, so I can have more to talk about. So she told me a little bit more but she doesn’t know everything, so I got everything I can. I practiced a few exercises with the patients again, I think that’s fun, because it keeps me from being bored and it’s interested to do the exercises they do. I also seen some of the patients I saw last Wednesday, which is kind of cool because once I’m getting use to it, and I’m going to remember the exercises and activities they practice and I can hopefully help them out. Every time I would go with Mark to watch him exercise, he would explain to me the problem they have and where it’s located and what causes it, and why they do that certain exercise on the patient. He would also ask me questions to see if I know or remember if had explained it to me before. Today he asked me, what is hypoglycemia, I didn’t answer it, and all I said was that I heard of it but I don’t remember. So he told me to Google search it, find what causes it, and what can you do to help it. I went into the office and looked it up and went back to him with the correct answers. I also got to go in the evaluation or revaluation room, that is a room for the patients first time visiting the place and the therapist asks questions and checks out the problem and make activities for that patient to practice. In that room I got to meet new people and learn about the questions they get asked and about the problem they have. There are some patients that when they walk in, they go to the machine they are assigned to go to or go do the exercises they usually do, without the therapist telling them to do it. But then there are patients that you have to keep an eye on and make sure they are doing the exercises because if not they are going to fake it. Especially the old people, because they are old, fragile, have more health problems, and they forget things easily. There was something I noticed, that a lot of the patients come in for problems with their backs, spine, or problems with their legs and they have to practice walking. There was a patient that came in, who was seventy years old and still works, he was hit by a snow plow truck, that must of hurt a lot. After lunch, it was dead there were rarely any patients there; there was only one patient there. So I filed some papers for the first time in my life in the office; which wasn’t bad, it’s better to do something than to be sitting down doing nothing. Before I left that last patient had one leg bigger than the other one, like when he was lying down and slide both of his legs towards his body, you can tell the difference from the knee down.