Initial entry placement 2

I am really looking forward to this placement. I will be gaining experience in the musculoskeletal field of physiotherapy which is I find really interesting and have always enjoyed learning at university. I haven't done a placement at a tertiary hospital yet so it will be interesting to see how everything is run there, particularly the musculoskeletal outpatient department which I will be spending most of my time in. It will be a good opportunity to work in such a busy environment (I would imagine).

I am expecting to be given a case load at the beginning of everyday and hopefully get the chance to discuss a few things with my supervisor prior to of after seeing a patient. I'm sure I will see a huge variety of injuries and conditions as well as deal with patients of different ages and backgrounds. After talking to another student about this placement, there is a day every week allocated to complex cases. I am anxious about this as I don't feel as though I have the experience to be able to deal with these cases as ideally as I would like to. On the other hand, it will be good to see some unusual conditions and how these are managed with physiotherapy. I do think my supervisor will be mindful that I wouldn't have as much clinical experience with such cases/conditions and as long as I 'have a go' I can learn from the experiences and build confidence so that I can handle them better as the placement continues I will be okay.
I imagine I will be doing some taping following injuries which I am eager to practice and I think this will provide an opportunity to learn some new techniques for future use! I think I will have to teach lots of exercises and stretches and learn to be an effective educator in regards to injuries and self managment strategies as well as rationales for why I am doing certain treatments. I'll most probably be doing a lot of manual therapy and have to do mobilisations which I am fairly confident with in terms of when these will be appropriate to use. However I don't feel that my technical skills are refined enough and may reduce the effectiveness of the mobilisations.
This placement will be a good refreseher of the electrotherapy modalities.

It is likely that I will see a large proportion of patients post-surgery, for example total hip replacement surgery, and will therefore have to follow appropriate rehabilitation protocols. I am expecting to see many people coming in with lower back and neck pain. I had some experience with this at my placement in third year however I still find that assessing and treating spinal pain is sometimes very challenging and that you have to be very biopsychosocial in your approach to it. I am worried that I will not do this as successfully as I should. Lastly, I am a little anxious about my time management, I feel it has improved however it is still not as good as it could be and I am not sure how large my case load will be as this will affect how I choose to manage my time.

In conclusion, I am excited to gain further experience in a musculoskeletal outpatient setting. At the same time I am very anxious as it is always hard to predict what to expect at a new placement! There are certain things which we have learnt at university but which we have had no clinical or hands on experience with and this is quite daunting especially as being a fourth year I am expected to be much more independent.