End of My Second Clinical!
Last week marked the end of my second clinical, a 10-week affiliation in an outpatient orthopedic setting. It is always exciting to work with patients, and I learned a lot about different pathologies, cultures, and other factors of PT. I was at a worker's compensation facility, which was nice because each of the patients had specific goals to meet before they were able to return to work.
I am very drawn to more of an inpatient acute setting (so far), but OP-O had a lot of aspects that I really enjoyed. For one, I had time to reflect on a patient's situation when they were not in therapy and brainstorm other ideas to help reduce pain or gain ROM. If I saw a patient on a MWF schedule, I could review notes and research on Tuesday/Thursday to be better prepared on days that I saw them. Awesome.
I am anticipating it will be very difficult to commit to just one area of PT to practice in. I loved inpatient acute during my first clinical, and OP-O wasn't bad either. By the way things are going, my guess is I will really like working in a rehab setting too. I think the bottom line is that I enjoy helping patients get back to where they were, and it doesn't matter what clinic or what setting I'm working in.
Anybody else feel like this? Benefits to working in a particular setting?