Whoops

Looking back at previous posts, I thought I had ignored my blog when I didn't update for a week... so this is pretty bad! My last week at the clinic up north was a bit out of the ordinary... I dealt with some crazy winter weather, lived in Duluth instead of Two Harbors, and missed 1.5 days in the clinic! Then it was back to the Twin Cities to work, off to Michigan for Christmas, and then to Washington for New Years, a belated Christmas, and a wedding! I had a wonderful (emphasis on the "full") Christmas break. Then last weekend, Ross and I drove down to Iowa so I could see my Grandma for her birthday and he could go to drill. (Sidenote--he only has three drills left!)

Now I am in Mankato, MN, which is about 1.5 hours southwest of the Twin Cities. It's a nice town and home to MSU. I "work" at an outpatient orthopedic clinic and live with my classmate's parents. It's going well so far. Tomorrow I have three initial evals so I can start building my own caseload! It's exciting but a bit scary. The PTs that I am working with are good. They answer questions and also challenge me. I think I will improve a lot on evaluating patients and providing them with appropriate treatments--which is obviously huge in PT. The clinic gets a variety in patient population, but I have seen quite a few patients with neck/back pain, shoulder pain, or post-op following a knee or foot/ankle surgery. This clinic gets more post surgical patients than my previous clinic, so I am learning a lot as far as precautions go following surgery. This is also my first experience with half-hour treatment times. Half hours are pretty standard in the orthopedic world, but I have been spoiled with having an hour to work with patients. The clinic is private practice (like the one in Two Harbors), so I have already had some more experience with marketing and meeting with doctors. It's interesting, but I usually stay pretty quiet during those meetings.

So now I need to go re-educate myself on low back pain to prepare for tomorrow. Hopefully this post will be the beginning of re-semi-updating.