Monday, October 06, 2008

Friday, October 03, 2008

on and on and on we go

I wish time would slow down a little bit, just to give me a chance to catch up. Life is good and busy... Here's the rundown....

FIELDWORK:
Just finished week 3/10. This was the best week ever!! I went in early and watched surgeries!!! I was literally a foot away from the surgeon. I watched the patient walk onto the operating room, lay on the table, get knocked out with anesthesia, prepped for surgery, get a hand operation, wake up and get rolled to recovery. It was unreal! I watched a pin removal (which literally took 5 minutes), a trigger finger release, a carpal tunnel release, and a scaphoid fx ORIF (which took like 2 hours). After 5 hours of that my legs were numb from standing, but it was worth it. The surgeon actually took time during the surgeries to give me a brief anatomy lesson and show me the exact tendons/nerves/bones he was working on. I never expected that! After the surgeries, I went back to the clinic and observed a patient with horrible RSD (from an injury at work). My CI's last patients canceled, so we spent the rest of the evening fabricating splints. I'm familiar with melting and cutting thermoplastic and making hand paddles from my rehab tech job, but this was my first time making a split from scratch. My CI taught me how to make a carpal tunnel splint. It wasn't so hard to make and it was pretty fun! I can't wait to take my splinting class next semester. My little sister has been wearing it around the house today... ; )

ADULT INTERVENTION/EVALUATION:
I'm not going to talk about all my classes today because that would take forever, but these two apply most directly to me and the population I'll work with immediately after graduation. We're learning about AROM, PROM, joint measurements, edema and scar management, transfers (chair->bed), bed mobility, managing wheelchairs, and different dx we'll be working with such as MS, Parkinsons and SCI. I made a blog for an advocacy project which can be found here: http://advocacydisability.blogspot.com/ .

GRAD ASSISTANT:
As I mentioned previously, the biggest part of my GA work has been my involvement with the autism social skills research and weekly groups. Here are some pictures from the presentation at the NJOTA conference...
Photobucket


There's tons more to share, but I'm out of time!
Till next week!

Patti