Life in Rehab
Well, I have one week of working in inpatient-rehab under my belt. It has been wonderful! I've seen a variety of pathologies--Parkinson's, hip fractures, stroke, along with many others.
Challenges thus far: learning the computer system, documenting efficiently, being detailed in my notes and thinking of treatment ideas in less than 5 minutes when my patient is waiting for me. Learning the rhythm of the clinic is part of the process, too.
It's been really nice to be in the clinic and working with patients. This is why I've been in school for six years, and am in serious debt. I see my patients smile, or attain huge goals, and I am so grateful that I'm in this field. Just one week in therapy can turn a patient's life around, and I'm so happy to be part of that.
Anyways, back to rehab. So, I never realized how important therapy minutes are! Our patients have to spend three hours in therapy a day-between a mix of OT, speech and PT. Thankfully, most of our patients have the endurance and the motivation to participate in this much therapy. Our department is blessed with wonderful rehab aides, who take care of a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff for our patients. There are a lot of wonderful things in the rehab unit, and I can tell I am going to learn a lot in the next 8 weeks (well, 7 now).