One year (almost) down

My first year of PT school is winding to a close, and I can hardly believe it! It seems like just a little while ago that I was just starting my first semester and was really nervous about classes. Now I'm finishing up projects and finals and wondering where all the time went!

In the past week I've had my final practical exams for Rehab and M&A (measurement and assessment). M&A was definitely the more intimidating of the two. I feel comfortable in the acute care setting, so I wasn't really that nervous about my rehab practical, but I was worried about my M&A practical. I had never done an outpatient eval before and I didn't know if I would be able to go through all the steps to diagnose and treat a patient. Actually, as it turns out, the practical wasn't that bad. Mostly because I didn't have to do a complete eval. The therapist I worked with asked me a bunch of questions about manual muscle tests and anatomy, then let me take a few goniometric measurements. And that was it. Apparently they don't expect too much from first years.

My first clinical starts May 16th at MCV hospital. I'm working in the neuro/brain injury rehab unit. I hope I'll learn a lot this summer and I hope I can progress from just observing a PT to actually helping out and doing some things. I want to be able to treat patients with uncomplicated diagnoses by myself by the end of the summer. That's one of the goals that I have for myself. I hope the therapist I work with will be willing to let me do some treatments and evals.

As a side note, I've been so thankful for my friends this semester! Getting to hang out and do fun things on the weekends has kept me from going crazy with the stress of school. Last Saturday was especially fun. Tristan and Emily drove to Richmond and the 3 of us went to see the play "Beauty and the Beast" at the Landmark theater. It was so exciting to dress up, do our hair, and go to dinner and the play (and even ice cream afterwards). We have plans to try to get tickets for some of the shows that will be at the Landmark theater next season- we really want to see "Wicked" and "The Lion King". It's such a girly thing to do, but I love to dress up for special occasions- especially when I'm going somewhere with my besties!