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.
I recently experience something I never thought I would experience as an athletic training student, I splinted a dislocated elbow. After saying “I splinted a dislocated elbow,” it sounds really cool, however, I was actually terrified when I did it. Here is how it happened. I was at John Battle for my offsite clinical rotation watching a boys jv basketball game. All of a sudden a young boy fell from an unexpected screen from the opposing team and landed on an outstretched arm. This event occurred on the other side of the court, so it was hard for Bre and I to see his elbow was dislocated. We waited until we noticed the boy was not getting up, and then Bre and I ran over to the other side of the court to assist the player. The assistant and head coach were already over there once we got there, so again we had no idea how hurt the boy was. The head coach, who is a surgeon, was able to reduce the elbow to relieve some of the pain for the boy. Bre was able to take control and help support the elbow in place while I went to get a sam’s splint. We immediately took him over to the side, and I had the sam splint ready to give to Bre to put on the boys elbow. However, Bre looked at me and said “be assertive,” so I quickly applied the splint to the boys elbow while Bre slowly took her hands away from supporting the elbow. I was very nervous once she said that, but it kind of hit me like a train and gave me a lot of courage to put the splint on the boys arm just how I had been taught in my Emergency Care class. I did not want the boy to see I was hesitant in my skills, so I quickly straighten up from being shocked to applying the splint exactly how I was taught. I knew how to splint an elbow; I had just never performed this action before in a real life setting, so I was very frazzled after the event. After I put the splint on, I began thinking of different ways I could have approached my splint job. I was worried I did not do it perfectly. I was able to talk to Bre after, and she told me how I applied the splint was the exact way she would have done it also. I am glad I got this experience because I was able to get my first real injury over with, and now I feel confident to splint any injury that I come into contact with especially an elbow. I believe this incident helped me towards my clinical goal because, even though I am a perfectionist, I was able to gain confidence in myself and splint the elbow. I now feel way more confident in splinting any type of injury because this event proved to me I am capable of splinting. This event did show to me that no matter the situation, I do know what I am doing I just need to have confidence in myself. Who cares if its not perfect because no one is perfect. However, the more experience I have the better I will be for the next traumatic event. Lastly, I was able to get 3 attempts this week.
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Reflective JournalsThese journal entries express my experience as an athletic training student Archives
April 2019
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