Journals
These journals reflect my weekly experiences as an athletic training student. Each journal reflects either an actual patient contact experience, or something I am working on in my athletic training courses.
The other day in the clinic I was scheduled to help womens basketball, however, none of the girls had shown up for pre practice treatment. So, I went over to Joe because I noticed he had a lot of athletes waiting to be seen by him, so I asked if he needed any help. I was a little nervous to help Joe because he is my preceptor in the spring, and I did not want him to think less of me if I had to perform an evaluation. However, I told myself I just needed to have confidence and perform the evaluation exactly how I know how to do it. Joe asked me to help an athlete who injured their arm. The patient couldn’t remember exactly what he did, however, he just knew the area where the pain was located. After looking at the patient, I narrowed down that the injury occurred on the biceps brachii short head. I also noticed a lot of bruising that occurred on the anterior aspect of the biceps brachii. I proceed to tell Joe, and he told me that is exactly what he was thinking too. He then asked me what kind of treatment I wanted to perform on this injury. Since the injury occurred the day before, I picked to do combo on his shoulder. I decided this would be the best choice for him because I wanted to make sure he began the healing process faster. I put the ultrasound on 20% and the intensity to .8. The intended outcome for this injury was for the ultrasound to used crystal combination to travel through the tissue and be absorbed. I wanted this to be performed over the bruising because there could be a potential contusion over that site, however, this was not the only area that was causing pain to the patient. I wanted to use electrotherapy to involve the whole area since there was more affected. The electrotherapy was used to provide electrical stimulation to the nerves. I did not come to this conclusion completely on my own. I picked to do ultrasound over the bruised area, and then perform electrotherapy after. However, Joe proceed to tell me to think more about the situation and then I realized I could perform a combination treatment on the athlete. This was actually a really great experience because it put me on my toes about thinking more outside the box. It was also really fun to do something different. Usually in the clinic we stick to the traditional ultrasound or electrostimulation, however, this was a very different form of treatment and I am glad I got to do something different. I think this is going to encourage me to do more outside of the box kind of things in order to help treat the athlete.
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One of my clinical goals this semester was to perform more evaluations. I picked this goal because I feel like I haven’t performed many real evaluations before because of my schedule. During volleyball season, I am usually scheduled for just clinic times and not many people came in with injuries. However, this did help me with my rehab progression. I haven’t been able to be apart of many practices in the past few semesters because of my schedule. However, this year, I was with the men’s soccer team who practice every evening. Their schedule worked really well with mine this year, and it allowed me to attend at least three practices a week. Due to being able to attend more practices, I was able to start performing more evaluations. Melissa also has challenged me with scenarios when there hasn’t been an injury recently. This has been really helpful because each time I am learning something new. I like being able to see where I went wrong. It has really changed the way I have been performing my evaluations because I used to follow text book, but I have learned I need to follow the patient. I believe this is going to be really helpful for me in the future because it will help me better diagnosis injuries. This also helps me with my confidence because I am able to continue performing evaluations and learn from my mistakes. I also get really hesitant when performing them because I don’t wan to be wrong, so this really helps me to learn that I know what I am talking about. I have had this clinical goal each semester because I feel like this is my weakness. I have not had much experience with real life scenarios, so when I get one I get really nervous. This clinical goal allows me to get out of my comfort shell and start performing evaluations. In less than a year, I should be a certified athletic trainer. I need to have confidence in myself because I know I can perform evaluations. So this goal has kept me on my toes. I continue to either perform real or scenarios from Melissa at least once a week when I come into the clinic. This will help me in the future and also in the present to help me learn from my mistakes and grow as a student. I will use this goal again next semester.
My favorite part of clinical semester this year has been being with the men’s soccer team during their whole season. Throughout this experience I have been able to feel apart of the team, which to means a lot and helped me to feel more comfortable. This also made my experience a lot better because I enjoyed being there with the team. I was able to learn a lot about the athletes which made it a lot easier to come into my clinical experience every day. I knew every injury, rehab, and who was limited and not during practice. I was able to build relationships with the athletes which allowed them to trust me more with their treatment. This was special to me because it made me feel welcomed on the team, and I think this personally helped me to wanting to do more during my clinical time. Before I had days where I would dread doing my clinical because before I didn’t enjoy it. However, being with a team for a whole semester really changed my prospective. I have mentioned this before in my journals, but it really was a waking up moment for me and I am very glad I had this experience. This helped saved me from going off the edge with my major. I had fun when I was clinically experiencing with them because I knew so much about them. This is helping me reach my clinical goal of being more confident in myself. This goal has followed me since my sophomore year. However, I am doing a lot better with trusting myself. Being with a team for the whole semester has allowed me to have the athletes trust me. So I know if I made a mistake they would still allow me to continue treatment on them. This has shown to me that making a mistake is ok, and I don’t have to worry about the athlete thinking I am not smart. So this experience has allowed to me see that I am smart, sometimes. I am able to do the things I am supposed to do. I just needed the confidence boost to help prove to me that I can do these things. So this was a very special moment for me to be with a team for a whole season. It made my clinical experience easier, and it showed me how much I do enjoy this major.
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Reflective JournalsThese journal entries express my experience as an athletic training student Archives
April 2019
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