Outpatients

I have been slacking off with my blogging recently, which I am a bit disappointed about. I am still currently without the internet as between BT and Sky I have been well and truly fucked over. Anyway I should be back up and running by the time I return from the Arsenal game! As the internet keeps me up to date with everything I need and don’t need to know and I couldn’t face either the hospital or library internet facilities I purchased a pay as you go internet dongle. I was actually quite impressed, I haven’t been downloading anything but just for general surfing it seems to be good value. It is a tad slow though so roll on Tuesday!

I am on my 5th of 7 placements now and just passed my half way assessment. This has been my favourite so far, in my view this is proper physio and is the reason I took on the course in the first place. It isn’t easy and is quite challenging which keeps me focussed but the banter with patients and staff is much better. The majority of my placements have been with the elderly and as previous posts have suggested although some of them are quite nice and I don’t really mind the old they poo, wee, scratch, bite, spit and smell a lot which puts you off them after a while. The other placement was on paediatrics which speaks for itself. This placement is an outpatient service, so would be the physio you see if you go to your docs complaining of a bad, neck, arm, shoulder, back, knee etc. There are also quite a few insurance referrals which I will come on to later. Generally I am seeing about 8 patients a day on average and getting left to do it on my own, which although scary at first I love. Anyway fingers crossed I pass the placement before coming on to a neuro placement in 2 weeks! Two funny stories I have had so far include: a gentleman arriving with shoulder pain, unable to lift his arm further than a few degrees forward or to the side (he was also suing his employer as he had fallen at work causing the injury), on my questioning at the beginning I asked whether he had received any previous shoulder injuries and whether he could normally move his arm well. He then raised his arm all the way above his head saying ‘Na mate before I fell I could get it all the way up here!!!’ What a knob, I obviously reported him and told him to leave and now his employers are in a legal case against him…brilliant!

Secondly another man came in complaining of an irritable neck, I asked if he had any other injuries or problems or anything else that was irritating him at the moment he replied with ‘Yes, my boss at work is very irritating, she is a complete fucking BITCH’ now when I say replied with he shouted this, so much so that the patient next door complained and two other physios came in to see what I had done to the patient for him to be shouting obscenities in my cubical.

They seem to like me a bit more at work as well after the Arsenal ticket incident which is good, for those that don’t know I managed to buy myself and two of my friends Arsenal Champions League tickets whilst I was meant to be working, I got caught and disciplined and warned of my future conduct but got the tickets so GET IN!!!

I also plead that for anyone who reads this, please comment and please update your own blogs as reading your posts are the only bent I get whilst I am all the way up here.