My last practicum was the musculoskeletal outpatients. I was on my 1st week of this prac and I had a new LBP patient cancel approximately 15 minutes before his appointment. About 5 minutes later, another new patient booked in for the same time slot. Being in my 1st week of prac, this made me a little anxious, even though the replacement patient’s condition was an Achilles tendinopathy (not too difficult), I still had little experience with assessing the ankle and this made me a little nervous. The patient also had to leave early because he was a lecturer and had a lecture he needed to get to. This left me with less time to do the full assessment.
Therefore the two main problems were, having to assess a joint I had not done before with short notice. And also, having less than usually allocated time to do this.
A question that may be raised, could be , if there are time restraints, are there elements of assessment which may be excluded to increase efficiency, or is the only option to cut down on treatment if there are time restraints?
There is value in this experience, since physiotherapists will have to at some point come across conditions which they are unfamiliar with (as simple as they may initially seem), which physiotherapists will also be faced with patients running late, or having to leave early and will have to accommodate due to time factors.
My new understanding or the situation is that, if a patient cannot stay for the full time, it is not the physiotherapist’s fault and so if reduced treatment time is required, this cannot be avoided. Also, even if you are unfamiliar with a condition, confidence, needs to be displayed, to give the patient confidence in the therapist’s ability.
Next time I will not waste time repeating assessments, when not necessary. I will act with more confidence and conviction with findings and treatment rationale. I will also do the necessary assessments, and explain to the patient that it is the treatment that will have to be reduced if time restraints are the issue.
1 comment:
I am currently on prac at curtin musculo clinic and have experienced similar situations where the patient arrives late and needs to leave early, which leaves on 30mins for treatment and they are pts I have not seen before. in this case I save time by only assessing the asterics signs and doing the subjective as the patient and I walk from the waiting room to the treatment room. I also fill out the pt notes before the pts get there and leave spaces so i can fill in the assessment findings.
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