So today, I'll be telling you guys how my day was spent today. To start with, today, being Monday here in the southeast of Nigeria, is always a sit-at-home. It's typically like a holiday that was enforced by some set of people who want to exhibit that they care for their brother who is currently detained by the government. Well, I won't be going deep here, so let's leave it for another day.
Since today is a sit-at-home day, normally people won't go out for their business activities because almost everyone is observing the holiday. So I prepared very early in the morning to go to clinical posting as usual at UNTH. I know I didn't wake up very early, but I was not too late also. After my preparation, I went to board a bus that was going to my destination. Unfortunately for me, the road was almost empty. Yes, I used to have such an experience, but today was just unusual. I had to wait for the bus for almost 1 hr before I could finally see one.
When the bus arrived, I quickly hopped inside the bus, even though the price was a bit higher than normal. But I had no choice since I was already late.
I reached UNTH immediately at half past 9 AM. Yeah, the bus tried so well with its speed, and I didn't miss my attendance. So I signed up to join my group immediately.
Today, what did we do? Well, we did a lot of things in my unit. I am currently in the electrotherapy and orthopedic unit. It's kind of a combined unit, and I like it that way. Just like using a stone to kill two birds, smile.
So we usually have the interns who supervise and guide the students in case the chief is not around. The interns who were available today taught us assessment. Yeah, as a physiotherapist, you must know how to evaluate and assess your patient. This gives you the idea of having to manage your patient or clients.
During the course of this teaching, we discussed various approaches and methods used in assessment, especially in orthopedic units. First, we used a student as our model, and by doing so, we gained hands-on experience with this situation. It was exciting and fun too. We had our different questions, and the interns were nice and kind in explaining our questions. It was a nice session for us because we learned a lot.
Later on, I was called to take the vital sign of a patient who happens to be a woman. I think the lady is having an anxiety problem or something, but actually I didn't stay to get what was wrong with her.
After that, we talked about pain and its assessment. Remember, the first assessment we did was a general assessment, but later on, we did a pain assessment. One important approach I learned is what we call SOCRATES. Do you want to know what this means? Well, it won't help you anyway, but it's an acronym used for pain assessment. Again, a student was called forward to be our model, and she pretended to have a low back pain with shoulder tightness. It was fun as we all were asking her questions just to enrich our knowledge and experiences.
Also around 1pm, the teaching ended, and it was time to go. I picked up my important stuff and left the clinic. I was happy while going home today because great knowledge has been added to the ones I have been accumulating so far.
Thank you for your time reading my experience as a student physiotherapist. See you tomorrow!!