Reflection #7

Stephanie Ortega
3/18/09
Reflection #7
Internship

Today when I went to internship and I started working on my project. When I got there, the other girl that does her internship was there before me. She will be going there every Wednesday from 7a.m. to 12p.m. First Mark gave me all the sheets that I will translate in Portuguese for the patients. My project is going to be, translating the home exercise plans for the patients in Portuguese, the reason is because a lot of the patients don’t do their exercises and a lot of them are Portuguese speaking people. So maybe if I translate them in Portuguese and they can have a sheet of their own, they will probably understand it better and apply their self to do the exercises. This project that I’m doing is an improvement for the system, and now the patients will have a choice of getting the exercise plan in English or Portuguese and everything that the physical therapist has to do is prints it out because it will be saved on their computer. A lot of the patients don’t understand, what is the concept of the physical therapist giving them these sheets; the physical therapists just want them to get better and practice the exercises at home so they can improve. The physical therapist is here to help them but if the patient don’t help their self there isn’t much a physical therapist can do, because they cant do all the work for the patients. The physical therapist is like a coach or a teacher, you do some work with the therapist but then when you get home you have to do homework as well, so that way, the next time you come in for your next appointment and the therapist tells you to do the same exercises you was suppose to practice at home, you can show the physical therapist that you do know how to do them. I know some words in Portuguese but I went to a website that translates English into Portuguese. I was working on that until 9a.m., because that was the time the patients started to come in. like every other Wednesday I was here following the physical therapists around. Helping them put the equipments, helping the patients do the exercises, watching, or cleaning up. There was a new patient today, but Mark said that he’s running out of time that the evaluation was going to be quick and to stay watching the other therapists because I might get bored in the evaluation room. What I find very boring about watching a physical therapist is massaging or exercising and stretching the patient’s body. Because I either stand or sit there and watch and it’s very boring because I’m not in motion or active doing anything. I like folding towels, setting the activities up, or getting the stuff for the physical therapist. If I just sit there and watch, I get really bored and sleepy which is not a good impression in my internship site, because it will show them that I don’t want to be there. Even though I try my best to stay awake for seven hours. Another thing that is very boring about my internship is when there are no patients, because what is their to do, well I know from now on when there is no patients I’m just going to do my reflection of the day or I’m going to keep working on my project. After lunch, I worked a little on my project because during 1p.m., it’s dead because that’s usually the time the physical therapist’s take turns going on their breaks. I was on the computer for 30 minutes. After that, Brian gave me a job to do and that was filing papers. I kind of like filing papers because it keeps me entertained and it doesn’t get boring to me because I usually don’t do this and I’ve never worked at an office. I left at 3p.m.