On my current rural prac, I have been seeing patients on my own without supervision and I only work with the physios/"supervisors" when they need a second hand to stand patients up. I have been working with a fresh graduate physio from N**** D*** who graduated just a couple months ago in the same ward for the past two weeks. She is very nice and friendly but I have been feeling very anxious and unsafe for the patients when watching her treatments. During the first session with a patient with congestive cardiac failure (CCF), we checked his observation chart: increased respiratory rate 26 breaths/min, otherwise stable. The patient was on 2L O2 nasal prong so prior to seeing this patient, I suggested to grab an oximeter but she told me not to worry about monitoring his O2 sats. Besides not monitoring the patient’s oxygen level, she did not monitor/palpate the patient’s pulse rate or ask for constant feedback if the patient feels okay. On top of that, she kept pushing the patient to do his upper limb exercises in the chair even when the patient became to look more distressed and his breathing rate was obviously increasing which really worried me while watching her treating this CCF patient. She then got me to help her to stand this patient up, and I was so worried that we would make him feel worse (e.g. cardiac arrest). We failed to stand him anyway and the physiotherapist ended the treatment.
When seeing the second patient who sustained a full rotator cuff tear and needed 2-person assist with standing as well, her patient handling was worrying me again. She basically was grabbing and pulling the patient’s injured arm while trying to stand her up. The patient was swearing and then refused to stand. So we put her back to bed and I felt really bad and sorry for the patient. The main lesson I learnt: the importance of regular monitoring and putting patient safety first while carrying out treatments. I have thought of approaching one of the senior physiotherapists to discuss this matter but given that this is my last prac, I do not want to create potential problems/conflicts for her/me as I will still be working with her for the next two weeks. Can anyone please give me some good ideas on how to solve this problem if the same situation happens again that put patient’s safety at risk? Any advices or suggestions will be much appreciated.
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