Second day...and very tired!!

Hrrm so many posts – making up for yesterday. I was so tired after the first day I did the necessary preparation for today and had an early night. Today I learnt about the notation // when we were writing up our notes. It means “after treatment” and reminds me of the importance to reassess after treatment (can’t believe we forgot yesterday!!). The Curtin 4^th year students who are also there are very nice and have been extremely helpful. One guy in particular has gone out of his way to be helpful.

Today we saw another two clients. It feels like we are wasting a lot of time – we could definitely fit in a couple more clients! I am hoping by the end of the 5 weeks we are seeing a few more. One client we saw today had bilateral calcaneal fractures. Apparently is it not unusual to fracture both heels due to the common ways the injury occurs (such as falling). This client had ORIF in on foot and non-surgical management for the other. I thought it was quite unusual. I did some research last night on calcaneal fractures. It is handy having the referrals, we can check what we will be seeing the following day and do some homework the night before! He came in a wheelchair but can walk short distances with crutches.

The other client had chronic Achilles tendinopathy. She had already had steroid injections. It is unusual for an Achilles tendinopathy to last this long (generally it would be around 3 months). It might suggest a central issue, rather than just a peripheral. I was glad we had gone over the US as this is one of the treatments we used. She did, however, point out she does not think US does any good. She said it “felt nice” while we were doing it. If she doesn’t think it will help there is probably not too much point in doing it – the mind is powerful and she seems to have already decided it won’t work. We are considering IF as an alternative as it is something different. There are also other options we are exploring. We are seeing her again next week so we have some time to prepare.

We are already getting a lot faster at the assessments. I am getting better at taking a subjective history but still find I miss a few questions. Our objective assessments are running a bit smoother as well. Overall I am quite pleased with how I am going. I am not sure what our supervisor thinks, it is hard to tell. He will only be our supervisor until the end of this week and then somebody else will be back from long service leave.