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.
A difficult conversation I have had has been about a way to handle how to approach feeling less of a student athlete compared to others. At first, I was unaware of what to do, and I just kept getting tore up over something which was really effecting me. The only thing to fix this situation was to be able to talk to this person, and tell them how I was feeling because this person might not even notice this was happening. However, at the time, I wasn’t really thinking of that. I reached out to one of preceptors for help because this was effecting me mentally and physically. My preceptor helped me work through what was actually bothering me. I was able to put my thoughts together about how I wanted to approach this situation. I asked this person if I could talk to them about something that was bothering me. I knew this was going to be really hard because I do not like confrontation. I would much rather just blow it off and keep going with my day. However, this was tearing me up. So I was able to create a list of things about how I was feeling and presented them to the individual. I was very calm and respectful with how I was feeling because I just wanted things to become back to normal. Lastly, I was very understanding to the situation. When I talked with my preceptor and told them how I was feeling, I came across very strong and aggressive. I think this was really helpful to talk to my preceptor first because I was able to see how much this had affected me. This also allowed me to let my steam about the situation. I will definitely want to continue talking to someone first about something that is difficult to talk about because I was able to be more calm and understanding during the time with that individual. I also learned from that experience that everyone views things differently. Everyone is not always on the same page as you. It’s always good to talk to people how you are feeling, even if it may be difficult, because then they are able to see your side too that they might not even noticed had been going on. I will continue to talk to someone first because it allowed me to approach the situation differently by allowing myself to calm down and put my thoughts together. Lastly, it showed me that I need to be more understanding. It showed me that being open to different situations is the best way to approach something that is challenging.
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Every semester, I have shaped my goals the same because I never feel like I have accomplished them. Each semester I realize that I could have done better with my goals, and I figure out different techniques that help with those goals. The more I use the same goals, the better I feel like I am accomplishing them. This semester I wanted to challenge myself because hopefully I will be certified after this semester, so I knew I needed to reach my goals this semester. My clinical goal this semester was to start becoming my own athletic trainer and to stop relying on my preceptors to guide me. I want to be able to do things on my own without any hesitation. I have been trying to perform my own treatment and rehab techniques without reaching out to my preceptor because eventually I will not have them. I have actually been doing a lot better than I thought I would. I think I was scared to be on my own, but I actually am very knowledge on all of this (shocking, right). Recently, I have been coming up with my own treatment for all of the athletes with Chaypin and confirmed them with her when I am finished. I believe I have gained a lot of confidence in myself from this, and Chaypin has believed in me a lot more. This has shown to me that I am capable of doing this on my own. I have obtained the skills and knowledge to be a great athletic trainer. This week I actually performed an evaluation on my own, performed treatment on the that athletes injury, and created a rehab for the rest of the week for them After performing my evaluation, I asked Chaypin to come over and explained to her the injury and my diagnosis, and she was able to check my work and agree with my diagnosis. I told her what type of treatment this athlete should receive and since the injury is a weakness in a muscle group that a rehab program should be written up for this athlete to perform. Chaypin let me make the treatment and rehab and was impressed with what I came up with. This was a really good feeling to be able to diagnosis the injury and create a rehab for them. I felt like I actually could take care of that athlete on my own. What a great feeling.
Each different month one type of healthcare is promoted and represented for that month. For the month of March, the healthcare that is promoted is athletic training. Athletic training is something that not many people know the exact job description that it contains which kind of makes it difficult for many to know what exactly an athletic trainer contributes to. So being able to promote this job is a great way to share with all different communities what exactly the job consists of since many have their own thoughts about what this is. This is a great way to get the word out about what the job consists of, and this is able to promote to the community the importance of athletic trainers to help influence the surrounding areas to have an athletic trainer at every high school. Since many people either hear the word “athletic” or “trainer” they assume that an athletic trainer is someone who trains athletes. This is very common to people who see us on the sidelines or who have assumed from the name. However, they are way wrong. Throughout this month, there has been many ways to share the job of being an athletic trainer as in through Facebook, Twitter, and on the internet (which is now the most common way that all people share information). The new slogan of “ATs are healthcare” also expresses that we are part of the group of health care. As mentioned above, a lot of people do not know the full job description of what an athletic trainer does because many think of us as strength coaches or water boys. Our healthcare is very different from a doctor or a nurse or an EMT because we are on the field or court during all practices and games. We stay with a specific sports team throughout their whole season. We also are with an athlete before, during, and after any injury which is completely different than any other healthcare. This slogan is important to me because it shows that we are a part of the healthcare field. We have some of the same strengths and skills as different healthcare profession that qualify us to be a part of the healthcare field. This also is important to me because a lot of other outsiders don’t see us as healthcare workers because we do not work in a hospital or clinic. We are part of a school, however athletic trainers work in a clinic too. But many people do not know that, and by having this slogan we are able to promote who we are. This is a great way to help spread the word of athletic trainers being a part of the healthcare system.
This week I attended time with doctor Hannula. I performed an evaluation on a track athlete this Monday night before Dr. Hannula arrived. Throughout the evaluation this athlete said he had been experiencing a weird lump on the back of his knees for about 8 months. He said they weren’t really painful unless he started running. However, he did not think to come into the clinic because he thought his muscles were just sore. A couple months later he realized they were starting to get bigger and becoming more painful when he was running. So, he finally came into the clinic. When I performed the evaluation, it was very interesting to see these bumps were bilateral. After listening to his history, I realized that this was not from an injury. After observing the athlete bilaterally this bumps were in the exact same spot. But this could only be seen when the athlete is flexing. I palpated the bumps and they both felt hard. He had normal ROM in knee flexion and knee extension. He also had normal functional movement. He reported that he only felt pain when he was running, however, the pain was bearable. I came to the conclusion that it was a cyst, but I was unaware of what kind. I talked with Alex about what I was thinking for the diagnosis of the injury, and he was able to confirm the same diagnosis. He talked with me about the differences between a ganglion cyst and a bakers cyst. Once Dr. Hannula evaluated the athlete, he diagnosed his with a bakers cyst. He explained that since this injury is bilateral, this would be more common than a ganglion cyst. He also explained that this injury could be from any type of swelling that has occurred. There is no medical reasoning for why someone gets a bakers cyst because it could happen from so many things. He explained to the athlete there was nothing he could really do for the injury. He said he could have the athlete come in so he could drain the cysts, but uncertain if that would help solve the problem because there is a likely hood these cysts could come back. The athlete said he would think on it because right now they aren’t bothering him tremendously. This was a very interesting injury to me because I had never seen a cyst before. It was also pretty exciting because this was a bilateral cyst which isn’t common.
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Reflective JournalsThese journal entries express my experience as an athletic training student Archives
April 2019
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