Sophomore Year
Clinical Placement Fall and Spring: Emory & Henry
- Two week rotation with each preceptor
- Sports: Football, M/W soccer, volleyball, M/W tennis, swim, M/W basketball, baseball, softball
- 10 hour minimum rotation with Johnston Memorial Hospital (Emergency Care, Wound Care and Imaging) and PT clinic
- Evaluation skills
- Observation of different wound healing techniques
- Knowledge of how MRI's work
- Rehabilitation Programs for different injuries/conditions
Junior Year
Fall Semester Clinical Placement: Off Site at Virginia High School
- AT for JV and Varsity fall sports: football, volleyball, basketball and wrestling
- Emergency Care: Was there for any life threatening injury for the athletes, splinting, EMS communication
- Evaluation: Assessed athletes for injuries such as ACL, MCL, and Meniscus tears, fracture at forearm, sprained ligaments of ankle, concussion, etc.
- Rehab: Rehabilitation program of an ankle sprain
- Communication: Informing patients (athletes) on at home care and their parents/guardians, explaining my ideas and thoughts to my preceptor for approval
- Men's/Women's Tennis and Swim
- Emergency Care: To help with any life threatening injury
- Evaluation: Assessed athletes for tendinitis (tennis elbow), ankle sprain, eating disorder/mental disorder, wrist sprain
- Rehab/prevention: After Rehab program was complete for injuries we focused on maintaining strength and stability (via strength/stability program or taping/bracing)
- Communication: Informing athletes on their condition(s) to help them understand what our (preceptor and I) plan was to get them to a healthier state
Senior Year
Fall Semester Clinical Placement: Emory & Henry
- Men's Soccer
- Evaluation: Assessed athletes for muscle tightness (hamstrings, IT bands, quadriceps), ankle sprain, dislocated finger
- Emergency Care: Wound care for turf burns, bloody nose, cleat marks, etc. There to help with any life threatening injuries
- Rehab/Prevention: Rehab program for ankle, strength/stability program for ankle, treatment of muscle tightness, contusions and strains, taping for ankle
- Communication: All evals, rehabs, treatments, etc. explained to preceptor for approval. Informed athletes what they needed to do on a daily basis (during practice or at home/dorm)
- Women's Basketball
- General Medical Rotation
- During the time spent at Dr Handy’s I saw a lot of patients with different conditions. He explained to me what the problem was in great detail after looking at each of his patients. The majority of his patients have type 2 diabetes with weight problems. I was not shocked to see this because diabetes (mainly type 2) is very common in the area. More specific injuries I encountered were shoulder impingements of the supraspinatus muscle. During my last visit I saw two patients that had this problem. Dr Handy made me diagnose the patient based of his eval and explain it to the patient. I felt very confident in my reasoning while explaining and Dr Handy was pleased with that. His treatment for the patients was a lidocaine injection that had a steroid in it. It helps with pain in minutes and in a couple of days the steroid will kick in to strengthen the muscle. While he performed his eval of the shoulders I was also doing an eval in my head of what I would do and making notes of the type of questions he would ask. For the most part I was dead on with my own eval as he went through his. Another patient presented with pneumonia. He had shortness of breath, chest pain, coughing (not productive), and dyspnea. While listening to his lungs, I heard crackling in the base of each lung. The 99 test and E test were both positive. This was the first time I had ever been around an eval for pneumonia, so I was pretty excited. I got to perform both tests, but I did not hear the A in the E test. I think this is because I have never done this test on a patient with pneumonia before. I also got to listen to a patient’s heart with aortic stenosis and A fib. After listening Handy asked me to explain what I heard and I said a swoosh sound. I wasn’t sure why exactly the swoosh was there but I did know that it wasn’t normal. An interesting topic brought up by another patient was CBD oil. She asked if it was worth taking because she knew many people that said it was great. Dr Handy explained to the patient that there was no literature on this new substance and that the companies were not regulated either. The woman was upset and Dr Handy told her she can use it at her own risk, but he did not recommend it to any of his patients. I also got to see a post fractured pelvis. The lady rides horses and has osteoporosis. She was complaining of hip pain and was worried because she thought she was done healing. Dr Handy explained why the healing process was slow due to her osteoporosis. After the patient left, Dr Handy said that people who smoke are more likely to develop osteoporosis and that this was more common in women. I saw three patients that fit this correlation in one day. Overall, the rotation with Dr Handy opened my eyes to how one disease or injury can trigger a cascade of events, and with the appropriate treatment this process can be halted or slowed down.
- During the time spent at Dr Handy’s I saw a lot of patients with different conditions. He explained to me what the problem was in great detail after looking at each of his patients. The majority of his patients have type 2 diabetes with weight problems. I was not shocked to see this because diabetes (mainly type 2) is very common in the area. More specific injuries I encountered were shoulder impingements of the supraspinatus muscle. During my last visit I saw two patients that had this problem. Dr Handy made me diagnose the patient based of his eval and explain it to the patient. I felt very confident in my reasoning while explaining and Dr Handy was pleased with that. His treatment for the patients was a lidocaine injection that had a steroid in it. It helps with pain in minutes and in a couple of days the steroid will kick in to strengthen the muscle. While he performed his eval of the shoulders I was also doing an eval in my head of what I would do and making notes of the type of questions he would ask. For the most part I was dead on with my own eval as he went through his. Another patient presented with pneumonia. He had shortness of breath, chest pain, coughing (not productive), and dyspnea. While listening to his lungs, I heard crackling in the base of each lung. The 99 test and E test were both positive. This was the first time I had ever been around an eval for pneumonia, so I was pretty excited. I got to perform both tests, but I did not hear the A in the E test. I think this is because I have never done this test on a patient with pneumonia before. I also got to listen to a patient’s heart with aortic stenosis and A fib. After listening Handy asked me to explain what I heard and I said a swoosh sound. I wasn’t sure why exactly the swoosh was there but I did know that it wasn’t normal. An interesting topic brought up by another patient was CBD oil. She asked if it was worth taking because she knew many people that said it was great. Dr Handy explained to the patient that there was no literature on this new substance and that the companies were not regulated either. The woman was upset and Dr Handy told her she can use it at her own risk, but he did not recommend it to any of his patients. I also got to see a post fractured pelvis. The lady rides horses and has osteoporosis. She was complaining of hip pain and was worried because she thought she was done healing. Dr Handy explained why the healing process was slow due to her osteoporosis. After the patient left, Dr Handy said that people who smoke are more likely to develop osteoporosis and that this was more common in women. I saw three patients that fit this correlation in one day. Overall, the rotation with Dr Handy opened my eyes to how one disease or injury can trigger a cascade of events, and with the appropriate treatment this process can be halted or slowed down.