Just keep swimming...

Ah my much-needed day off....things are getting crazier and crazier by the day at Wildwood. While I watch the other PT students seeing one patient while their CIs see other patients, I have somehow been given the responsibility of trying to juggle the entire caseload, meaning I am attempting to see 2-3 patients at a time all day long, while squeezing in last minute evaluations over my lunch break. These 11-12 hour days 4 days a week are starting to exhaust me. While I'm glad for so many learning opportunities, I think it's just a teeny tiny bit unfair to expect me to handle the entire caseload of a PT who's been working there for over 5 years and has traveled with the olympic team to treat athletes at the games. I mean, come on..yesterday during lunch we had to squeeze in an evaluation for a gymnast who fell on her head and was having sternum pain. Um...I can honestly say that I NEVER learned in school how to treat sternum pain. Seriously. So now I will probably fail the CPI (my midterm grades that I will be receiving tomorrow), because I had absolutely no clue where to even begin with this person. Tomorrow I'm evaluating a patient who has had achilles tendon repair. Do you think we've discussed that in school? of course not. So it's starting to get just a little overwhelming trying to evaluate these people and treat 2-3 other people at the same time and do it over and over again all day long.

To top it off, I haven't even started my service project or presentation that I am giving in a few weeks. My CI has given me homework on patello-femoral pain that involves me having to read 10 articles that are all about 10 pages long and then answering 15 questions on them by Monday. I still have to fill out my own CPI today, and trying to grade myself is really going to suck. To make it even better, something in the dry winter air this season has made the skin under my fingernails pull away from my fingernails, leaving me with bloody fingers where they crack and bleed, so all of my fingers are bandaged and I can hardly type or write. Awesome.

But...with that said, I am still trying to have a better attitude. I keep looking at all of this as a great learning experience and as much as it sucks, it will make me a better PT. If I ever get a job in a low-key setting, I will appreciate it 10x more than I would have before. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that I actually pass my CPI tomorrow and don't leave crying over the fact that my CI thinks I am at "beginner" level. I really don't want to have to email our clinical coordinator and explain to her why my CI thinks I'm a total idiot.