Last First Day of clinicals

My first day at Montpelier went well. I felt like it went by super fast, since it's just an 8 hour day. I about don't know what to do now that I am getting home before 5pm. I feel like everyone over at Montpelier is so nice. No one was rude or made me feel stupid in any way. Even though we truly were busy, I found it interesting that they kept stating how "busy" they were and we had 4 patients this morning and 4 this afternoon. Yes, it was busy and we didn't sit down at all and do nothing, but I will take 8-10 patients a day over 30. I felt like the patients got so much better quality of care because they were seen 1 on 1 and we got to actually spend time with each one.

Another good thing about this clinical, when people ask me where I'm from and I say "Fayette," they don't respond with "huh?" or "where's that?" They all know exactly where I'm talking about and 75-80% of them ask "oh yeah, do you know so-and-so" that they know from Fayette, and 99% of the time I know exactly who they are talking about.

My CI is super nice and very understanding of what it's like to be a student. He didn't throw me into any evals or crazy stuff on the first day. He also didn't make me learn the entire documentation system on my own on the first day, which was a huge plus. It doesn't hurt that it's somewhat the same paperwork as I used at Bryan on my first clinical, but I'm not going to go around bragging about that, because it's nice to have a little refresher.

My entire lunch cost $2 today. Meals are half-priced for students and they are already pretty cheap in the first place. I had a fish sandwich, scalloped potatoes, and a drink for $2. Guess who isn't going to bother packing a lunch at all for the next 8 weeks? I didn't get a salad today, but I am pretty sure that I could live on the salad bar alone as my lunch every single day and it is probably a whole $1.

Another plus: the paperwork they sent me in the mail a couple of weeks ago said that I could wear scrubs or khakis to the clinic. I chose khakis today because I assumed that my CI would wear khakis as well. Well, today he wore scrubs...so guess who's wearing scrubs as much as possible? Yay for comfort.

On the not so plus side, I have A LOT to review about neuro and inpatient rehab. My CI was talking about some diagnoses that I had heard of today, but couldn't remember exactly what they were, so I need to review all of those and also review the FIM, because they apparently use it for every single patient for every single activity. Lucky for me, I finished up reviewing the musculoskeletal chapter of the NPTE review book and I am now on to Neuro, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can study for both at the same time.

On another note, I did receive an email back from one of the "dream jobs" that I applied for. She didn't say that they were for sure hiring, but she thanked me for my information and said that she was going to be at the job fair on Wednesday (which we are excused from the clinic to go to) and was hoping to see me there and looks forward to meeting with me in person. Even though this is not a job interview by any means, I am still planning on making a very good impression, and please please please say some prayers that I get this job. It would be like a dream come true for me. I also found out that the other girl from my PT class who works for a company that's affiliated with this one has a job lined up elsewhere, so she will not be competing with me for a job here (if there is one). So, like I said, keep your fingers crossed and say some prayers...I'll update after the job fair on Wednesday with any news.