For my last journal in the program, I am gonna talk about my experience and how it has molded me into the person I am now. Throughout my time in college, I have had so many ups and downs, but all the bumps in the road have changed me into the man I am now. I am very tolerant of people and just more caring of others than I ever was. I have had some moments here that have pushed me to a breaking point, but with the help of family and friends I was able to turn these times in my life into a learning lesson. I have made plenty of mistakes, but I know that without making these mistakes I would not be who I am now. My confidence level in just who I am and my skills as an AT is at an all time high. I really believe that the reason I made it through the program is because of a couple of preceptors here. My confidence before my junior year was really bad, but with help from my preceptors I came believe in myself much more. I would also like to think that I became much more of a professional as a student. I still have some uphill battles when it comes to my academics, but I have made such personal progress in my eyes. I used to hate everything about school, but after a while I got so tired of saying negative things so something had to change. I decided to look at everything in a different view. I stayed much more positive about the work I had to get done, and it changed my life in a drastic way. I have been much more happy since my decision to change my attitude. Don’t get me wrong, I still have my complaints, but overall I am just much happier. My peers have helped me so much and they have no idea. I have had a lot happen here that brought me really down, and everytime my friends were there for me even if they didn’t know it. I have so many people to thank for helping throughout the years. I am happy to be the patient, kind, understanding, and funny person that I am. The reason for my personality is because of the people who showed my these attributes. So with this last journal I am very sad it has come to an end, and thank you to everyone who has helped me to this point in my life.
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For this journal, I am going to explain how I have developed communication with physicians and other medical professionals. During my years in the program, I have had a lot of time with the team physician. When he comes in to assess athlete’s injuries we have to present them to the physician. We go over everything that has happened to athlete regrading the injury and any past medical history. He usually does his own evaluation on top of everything else. My time with doc has been very informative. He has broken down so many injuries and other possible injuries that I have never heard before. At first I was very timid because I felt like I knew very little about injuries and how to properly evaluate someone. After a year or so I began to gain confidence and more knowledge so talking to the physician was not as bad. I talk with the team doctor now much more professional than ever before, but the only problem is no baseball players have had to see him except for one. He had already seen him previously about his shoulder so it was more of a follow up about his condition. Outside of our team doctor, I have shadowed another physician at his place of work. Dr. Handy is one of kind and very smart. He taught me a lot about diseases and how demographics reproduce the same problems for his patients. I never really thought about the area I was in because I have only worked with athletes. When seeing the general population, you can really see how an area is affected by lifestyle. So when Dr. Handy was explaining this to me, the whole time I was thinking of how I can’t say anything because of patient confidentiality. I have become much more professional in communicating with other medical professionals because of the AT program at Emory & Henry.
For this journal I am going to talk about my two strengths and 2 weaknesses I have. My strengths are interpersonal skills and time management. My interpersonal skill is a strength due to my confidence that I have in myself. After being in the program for a year and a half, I saw just how much I knew and became excited to explain what I was doing. This used to be a weakness for me, but now I look forward to communicating with others, especially when I am going to either help them or work with them. My second strength was definitely a weakness not long ago. Time management was something I struggled with so much and still do now when I have a lot of stuff coming up in school, but I know how to handle it now better than I did. I made school a lot harder on myself than what it needed to be by pushing everything to the side until the last second. Now, I look ahead in the week to get some of my responsibilities early so I don’t have to stress over the little things. My two weakness are being a consistent student and expressing my concerns to professors and preceptors. During my time in college, I have made a lot of improvements academically, and I am very happy of that. There are still sometimes when I am just not very consistent in my work and decide to slack a bit. It is always one month during the semester where I get complacent of my success and stop pushing to do better. After that month I get back on track and start to push myself again. Me being consistent as a student is only a weakness because it is something that weighs on me greatly because I want to succeed, but I sometimes don’t follow through on goals. So when I start to get lazy and don’t want to do my work as much, I just go to the library and grind it out. As much as I dread it sometimes, I try to find the positive in it. My second weakness, expressing my concerns is another I want to work on because when I am in a career setting I will need to voice my opinion on certain matters. During my years in college, I have rarely voiced myself when I was upset with how something was going, whether good or bad. I think my confidence had to play a role in that, but the first time I actually said something I felt really relieved and a lot better about my situation. I had to express my concerns this semester to a professor and I felt I was very professional during this time. I am not sure if it had a big impact, but I still felt better about trying to make my concerns known.
In our ATR 462 Research and Design class, there have many been issues that have caused us to be behind on material. It has been really challenging to stay focused and engaged the whole time and outside of class as well. Now that we are actually breaking down research, which has happened in the two classes, the class is not as boring as it was. I feel like this class is just nothing but definitions up to this point and nothing having to do with the application a study has in the practicing world. These past two classes have opened my view to the language of research. I feel as if I can look at almost any research and figure out whether or not it is garbage or a gem. This has really come in handy for Colin and I doing our own research. We are making sure that mistakes are minimized by looking over what we have done in class. A lot of our research is starting to make more sense as well too. For the most part I feel like critical appraisal is not that bad, but it is a skill that takes time to develop. Research has its own language and trying to understand all the vocab is the most challenging part. I do enjoy dissecting the research because it is just preparing me for the future as an Athletic Trainer, but there are just some aspects of this class in general I do not like. Some may be able to be fixed, but I think we are at a point in the semester where nothing is going to change. All in all, if someone asked me to give an opinion on a research paper I would not feel terrified to give them my opinion because of what I have learned this semester.
I haven’t really had any difficult conversations recently, but there is one conversation that I found really hard to help with an athlete. I have a baseball player at the moment that has tweaked his hamstring a couple of weeks back. He is able to participate during games, but he is limited in practice when he starts to experience pain. We have him stretch, roll out, and keep his muscle warm while he sits out for a bit. He came up to me this past week talking about him not being able to participate for the whole practice. He explained to me that he felt not good about starting when he sometimes has to sit out during practice. I have been in his shoes before so I know exactly what he was feeling. I began with what exactly his injury is and how he has to take precautions during practice. His hamstring is kinda weak and still in the healing process, so I took time to explain how easy it would for him to reinjure the hamstring. I don’t think that really helped with how he feels, but at least he can have a firm grip as to why he needs to take it easy. He is an athlete that will actually listen to what we say, so I think he will be fine. I felt like this situation was difficult because I have been exactly where he was and it really is something that sticks in your mind. If this was a really serious issue it could prevent him from playing at his best or cause him to lose focus and reinjure himself. I’ve told athletes that their season is ended due to an injury or have been there that conversation, but it's so clear cut to the point where there is nothing to considered. This conversation really let me interact with an athlete with a personal experience of how I felt while playing. I feel like I handle the situation as best as I could, and I am not sure if there is anything else I should’ve said. I did make it clear that he absolutely needed to take it easy which I think is the biggest part of the conversation. Looking back on it, I never thought what should I say that I was taught in class, but more of how can I explain why it's important to do the things we tell him and how easy he could hurt himself more.
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April 2019
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