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.
After I have achieved my degrees and licenses, a day in the future life of Sam involves a very busy plan scheduled. I see myself starting the day off with patients scheduled from 9 AM to 12PM, lunch break from 12-1, and then finishing off the day seeing patients until around 5:30. These patients will be coming to me for evaluations from a prior injury. I will be diagnosis the patient by either sending them to imaging or being able to perform certain tests to figure out with their injury consists of. On Monday and Wednesday, I will be working in the operating room assisting the physician with different types of orthopedic surgeries. I see myself seeing around 10 patients a day, this allows me to spend time with the patients to get to know them on a personal basis. Sometimes I will have new patients come into the clinic, but I will be reevaluating these patients to release them. My main goal in life is to help others. I want to be placed some type of health care system that allows me to help as many people as I can. I want to start by helping others as an Athletic Trainer then working my way up to become a Physician Assistant. My dream is to become an PA that has specialized in orthopedics or in women’s health care/pediatrics. I want to be able to know my patients on personal basis and be able to work with them throughout their injury process. I am getting closer and closer to this goal, I have one more year of undergraduate then taking the last step in my schooling process to graduate school. Throughout my undergraduate I am learning so much about orthopedics and believe I will be ahead of others in this category in graduate school. I get excited every morning because I am able to be in a clinic and evaluate different patients which will help me in my future because I will have many patient contacts. Recently, I have talked to two PAs about shadowing them over the summer. I have also looked into taking a course to help prepare me for the GRE. I am planning on taking the GRE over the summer/August time to allow me to have enough time to apply to multiple PA schools. Lastly, I have also been looking at different PA schools around this area because I have been told I can not put all my eggs into one basket (Emory). I am very excited to start my career, however, very hesitant because I do not know where I will end up. I wasn’t able to get any masteries or attempts this week.
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Athletic trainers have a huge spectrum in which their job title falls under. The athletic training month slogan expresses that very well. The slogan, “Compassionate Care for All,” expresses that no matter the injury the athletic trainer always goes farther because they care about the athletes. They aren’t there to put a bandage on someone or tape an ankle for practice and move on, they are there to find the source of the problem and continue to fix it until there is no pain. This doesn’t even have to be in injury. This can be a mental or emotional problem. An athletic trainer has the most interaction compared to any other health care professional. This is a huge advantage to other health care providers because they are with the athletes all the time. This enables them to be able to notice different changes in their athletes which can help them care for them. This can show when an athlete isn’t just having a bad day, but they are having bad weeks or mood changes. They are able to pull the athlete aside and talk to them when they notice something is wrong. They are also a friend for their athletes. They are with them all the time and are used to their busy schedule, and sometimes the athletes need to come and let out all their stress in which the athletic trainer is there to listen to them which is usually all someone needs. They can help the athlete by giving them advice on how to better their schedule. This message really reflects me because my goal in life is to help others. I want to be the person that patients/people want to come to when they are injured, struggling mentally, or even going through something emotionally. By being an athletic trainer, you have the ability to embody all these aspects. This message reflects the representation of an athletic trainer because it expresses the means that they care for all. You do not have to be an athlete that gets injured from their sport, but even someone who has an eating disorder and needs someone to talk to find help and get better. Lastly, my attempts and masteries for the week. I had a really tough week to find time to meet with Bre because my mid day classes and wasn’t able to clinically experience with her. I did however spend a lot of time with Chaypin and was able to get 2 attempts.
This year I picked my clinical question based on my something I can test for the next year. My little clinical question is “does tenotomy the biceps tendon with labrum repair make athletes with overhead activity more susceptible to biceps tendinopathy after returning to play.” I picked this question because my rehab patient for my clinical class had labrum surgery, and they cut the bicep tendon off. I was really interested when I first heard about this because I never knew this is one of the ways to repair the labrum. I honestly had no idea this is how some surgeons perform labrum surgery. After I had initially thought about it, I was curious if this affects the athlete after return to play. I was also wondering if the biceps tendon just creates a new attachment to the biceps. After reevaluating the process, I wanted to find out if this causes more issues for biceps tendinitis. However, for overhead athletes, would this be beneficial because it would not cause any biceps tendinitis because the biceps tendon has been cut off. So I begun my question to figure out if cutting the biceps tendon does create any biceps tendinopathy. I have started my research already and found that it is very common for overhead athletes to cut the biceps tendon to relieve pain (biceps tendinitis). A lot of baseball players have had this surgery before in order to reduce pain in the biceps. My investigation committee consists of my AT advisor Hannah, my faculty advisor Beth, and my clinical partner Katie Meade. I am in the process of finding a content expert. I have reached out to Dr. Hannula, but was later told that he does not check his email. I picked Hannah because she has two sports with overhead athletes (volleyball and baseball). I picked Beth because I can come talk to her anytime about my research. She also has read a lot of research, so its helpful to come and talk about things I have read compared to what she has read. Lastly, I picked Dr. Hannula because he is a surgeon, and can talk with him about what he prefers/what is best.
This week I was able to get a lot of attempts with Bre. I made a home rehab for an athlete at Patrick Henry. It was actually quite fun to make it for her, and she said she was really excited because she was wanting to get better. I believe I got 9 attempts this week. When I need help, I look to a lot of professors and preceptors. There are some staff members who have helped me throughout my 3 years at Emory. Depending on the situation is who I go to for help. If I need help with one of my athletic training classes, I usually go to Beth or Melissa. I started going to them my first semester of sophomore year because there were things I just couldn’t grasp. They were able to guide in the best direction of what resources I should go to, and how to understand what was going on with my learning process. Usually my problems were something really easy, but my brain just couldn’t grasp the information. So they would tell me “come on Sam, you know this! Stop making this more than it is” which would help me look back at it and understand what it was and why I was making it over complicated. I take things way too far. Which I guess could be good or bad. However, there are things that are very simple, and I just can’t comprehend. So those are the people I go to when I am struggling with my athletic training classes. When I am struggling with other classes like my chemistry class or stats, I would turn to Brianne. She would usually tell me that I might need to take a break from those classes and try to retake them next semester. However, this was more than enough for me to challenge her and allow me to do better in the class. Her support allows me to challenge myself. Whenever I hear “I cant do something” or “maybe take break from it,” it really fires me up to want to prove everyone wrong and show them I am ready and capable. Which ironically is really helpful for me to go to Brianne because hearing that allows me to do better in the class. Lastly, for the most stressful part of the semester (exit interviews), I turn to Chaypin. She helps me balance my stress, knowledge, and schoolwork. I try to begin my book early in the semester, however, I tend to forget small details about the subject. So she helps me to gather all my thoughts together and continues to ask me the same questions to make sure its locked in my brain. All these people are my support system in different ways. When I am struggling with something, I know exactly who to go to for help.
I was able to get 8 attempts this week and no masteries. However, I am getting masteries this week! An athletic trainer is with a certain sport throughout their whole entire season, and sometimes for multiple seasons. They watch the athletes every day at practice. They know more about the athlete than another health professional because of the amount of time spent watching their practices/games. The athletic trainer should know what is a good and bad day for each athlete. They should know their personality and exactly what is normal and abnormal for them. When a patient comes into the clinic about an underlying problem he or she is experiencing, there is usually more to their injury. The athletic trainer does not just focus on their injury, but also on the core reason that could be effecting the problem. Its important for the athletic trainer to be able to notice when something isn’t normal with an athlete. For example, if an athlete is experiencing an eating disorder and is complaining of being fatigue all the time, an athletic trainer would notice that the athlete’s physical appearance has completely changed. They would be able to help the patient not only fix the problem with being fatigue, but educate and help them fix their eating disorder. Its also important because the athlete has someone to come to with other emotional issues they may be experiencing. This gives the athlete someone to trust to come to in order to help them through an emotional problem. Another important reason the athletic trainer should treat the whole patient rather than focusing on the impairment because they can know when to either push the athlete throughout rehab or how serious an injury might be. When the athlete is going through rehab, the athletic trainer will know when they can push the athlete to do more, or when the athlete has done too much, or even had a bad day to not allow them to reach their full goal. An athletic trainer has a very important role to the athletes compared to other health professionals because they are able to help the athlete by fixing the whole patient rather than the injury. Due to being with the athletes constantly they have an advantage in knowing when something else is going on with the athlete other an injury. By the athletic trainer taking a holistic approach to their patient they can also help them with mental problems going on in their life too.
My role as an athletic training student during rehab has multiple effects to my patients. As an athletic training student my main goal for rehab is to help the athlete or athletes get back to performing sport specific activities. However, there is a lot more than performing exercises or regaining full range of motion throughout this process. Throughout rehab, there is usually a progressive protocol that is followed to help the athlete heal from an injury, but each patient is very different which means some patients may progress slower or faster than the protocol. One must take into account the athletes mental and physical capabilities when programing their rehab. Different patients can fly through strengthening and range of motion for their injury, while others struggle because they are too timid to perform certain actions because they are afraid or hurting themselves again. So each patient should be treated differently according to their attitudes and efforts. I progress with my patient on a day to day progress. By watching the patient daily to see what challenges him and what he seems to overcome helps me to plan the rehab for the next day. By planning day to day helps me to interact with my patient to understand his attitude and efforts. After watching the patient be able to perform an exercise without complaining and willingness to get better is when I believe is the best time to progress in the rehab. It also depends on what type of injury because each injury must have a different approach. For example, an ankle sprain compared to a labrum tear that needed surgery. The patient with the ankle sprain can be pushed hard to get to back to play faster because the recovery time is shorter compared to the patient who had labrum surgery. Overall, the patient needs to progress when the patient is ready. There is no need to push a patient when they are timid about certain exercises. One must work with that patient to overcome the fear in order to progress in the rehab. After the patient has showed they are comfortable with the exercise they should increase in weight or repetitions. This allows the patient to also see progress by going up in weight or repetitions. If the patient sees progress throughout rehab it usually influences them to continue working hard which allows them to advance in their rehab. I personally like to influence my patients both mentally and physically. I know they have a lot going on with class work which can build up a lot of stress, so when they come into the clinic I try and help them forget about all the stress from classes and have them focus on trying to get better with their injury.
One challenging evaluation I had was determining which muscle was strained in the hamstring. I was able to go through the entire evaluation to figure out if something was wrong and narrowed it down to it being a muscle injury. However throughout this evaluation I kept trying to think about what special test I could perform for a hamstring. I am used to following a textbook about certain injuries, however, there isn’t special tests one can perform show a positive or negative sign about a manual muscle test. I was able to go through ROM, and when I got to my strength testing I really struggled with remembering how to isolate certain muscles in order to bilaterally test it to see if that muscle is the one that is injured. I think what was so challenging about the evaluation is that I got really nervous when I couldn’t remember the origin and insertion of the muscles of the hamstring and just began shutting down. So I wasn’t able to isolate the muscles to figure out which muscle was strained. However, this was a very good lesson I learned, and I am really glad this evaluation happened early in my learning process. I am so used to going off of special tests to perform in order to get that a positive result. This evaluation really opened up my insight to how I should be performing my evaluations. I now spend more time focused on the history portion of my evaluations. By figuring out exactly where the pain is located allows me to figure out if its bone, ligament, or a muscle, which helps me to begin my evaluation. I used to begin by thinking “oh this injury is the shoulder and let me do as many special tests as I can think of,” however, that’s not how it should be at all. I have been able to fix my evaluation skills and make less effort in performing as many tests as I can and certain things I should do for what the patient is describing. I also figured out how important ROM and manual muscle testing can be. This helps to figure out what is weak bilaterally and use it throughout my evaluation. This has influenced me to take my time at the beginning of an evaluation to allow myself to figure out the bulk of the history and where the patients weaknesses are located. There have been multiple evaluations where I do not even perform a special test because I am able to listen to the patient’s history and mechanism of injury to figure out it is just a muscle/muscle strain injury. This week I was able to get 4 attempts!
Throughout my experience as an athletic training student, I have faced multiple challenges. First, I have found it hard to plan enough time for my studies and to complete all my clinical hours for the semester. Each semester has gotten better, however, I am still trying to find the best way to plan my schedule to plan enough time to study and get all my hours in because each semester is different. When I am in volleyball season I lose a lot of time to get my clinical hours in, so that’s one reason I can not keep a steady schedule for each semester. Next, I have found it challenging to participate in outside clubs/activities because a lot of my time is devoted to getting my clinical hours or doing something for volleyball. Because of this challenge I do have difficulties balancing my time for studies and wanting to participate in other activities. Although, I have learned from previous lessons that it is more important to not participate in the activity and either study or do homework for the next day. Lastly, I believe my biggest challenge is officially breaking out my shell and being able to perform evaluations on athletes. I have come a far way from when I was a sophomore. However, there are times I still hesitant when I perform an evaluation. Not because I do not know what I am doing, but because I want to know I am going in the right direction with the injury. I want to be able to perform the evaluations without uncertainty and diagnose the patient. There a couple people that I do turn to for help in these situations. I have talked with Beth a lot about feeling more comfortable in the clinic. There have also been times where I just feel drained about being an athletic training student, and I have talked with Beth about what I can do to feel more engaged in the program. I have been able to use her advice and make my clinical experience a lot better. I also talk with Chaypin about how to approach certain evaluations. Sometimes the patient doesn’t give enough information (typical), so I find it hard to figure out where to begin. Last semester I talked with Cole. He was really helpful in guiding me in the right direction throughout the fall semester with rehabs. In the field house there is not a lot of rehab equipment, so there were a lot of times when I didn’t know what types of exercises to give the athlete, however, Cole showed me multiple exercises that can be done without equipment. This allowed me to feel more comfortable performing my own rehab for an athlete. He helped me to logically think what muscles I was trying to attack and just coming up with exercises that targeted that certain muscle or muscle group. I think the support that I need is just knowing that I know what to do. I lose a lot of confidence in myself, and I think that would help boost my confidence.
I did not get any masteries this week, but I did get 2 attempts! Looking back on my progress I have obtained many, many, lessons. My first lesson, which I will try to never have to go through again, is finishing my clinical packet at least two weeks before finals. I know everyone talks about finishing their clinical packets as early as they can, but I am serious this semester when I say I am going to stay on top of my book this semester. Last semester was my first semester I struggled to get all my masteries finished in time. This gave me a lot of unwanted stress if I would have not procrastinated. I do not want to experience the stress of finding time to get masteries when I should be preparing for finals. This semester my goal is finish my clinical packet at least two weeks before finals. Next, I have learned that its ok to be wrong. Sometimes I make myself feel like I need to be a perfectionist which isn’t good at all. I have come out my shell these past two semesters and began performing evaluations and challenging myself to find the injury/source of the injury. However, when you can not figure out the injury or you forget to perform a special test, it’s a really good learning moment which allows you to learn from your mistakes. Last lesson I have learned throughout this year and a half in the program is to reach out to your preceptors and professors with confusion on injuries, evaluations, or something we learned in class. They are very helpful all the time, and throughout the semester I have realized whenever I am confused its always good to talk with a preceptor or professor about it and they are very effective in helping me understand it. These lessons have changed how I approach evaluations because now I do not have the mind set of being afraid to get it wrong. I now have the mind set of wanting to learn/do the best I can. These lessons have encouraged me to discover more about injuries by asking my professors and preceptors. This semester I am setting myself a huge goal to get my clinical packet finished at least two weeks before the semester is over. I am also challenging myself to review each body segment once a week. I set this goal for myself last semester, and I was unable to finish the goal. So this semester, I am going to finish the goal. I have already made flash cards from studying for my previous exit, and I am going to review them and go over anatomy once a week.
This semester has felt like a rollercoaster to me. There have been times where I have been ahead in my studies, however, there have been times I have been swamped with my studies. Volleyball season really put a lot of stress on me which did not allow me to get ahead in my classes. I did not appropriately balance my school work and practice schedule. Last year, I was not this stressed throughout the fall semester which made my mental health seem a lot happier. This semester I have been behind, and I have been trying to catch up on things when I should be studying for my finals (which then of course makes me even more stressed). Over thanksgiving break, I did catch up on a lot of assignments so I wouldn’t be as swamped for the upcoming week which was very help, however, there is still so much to do and not that much time left. The good part of this semester is that I feel like I have learned A LOT. I do believe this is the first semester I have retained more information instead of just memorizing it. Of course this could be because its my second year in the program, and this information has been drilled into my brain multiple times. But it does seem a lot easier for me to understand injuries this semester. The bad part of this semester was mainly me not balancing my school work and volleyball schedule well. My preceptors this semester have been very helpful for me. There have been multiple times they have stayed after practice to help me with areas I am not as confident in. For example, I have been working with Chaypin almost every day about evaluating injuries, and she has helped more feel more confident in myself when performing evals. For my spring semester next year, I am going to work hard on planning my week to allow myself a better schedule to not feel as behind. I want to be able to work on my clinical packet earlier. For the past two semester, I usually have my book completed before the last two weeks of classes to allow me to get prepared for my exit and finals. This semester I have not planned my schedule well, so I feel really behind compared to the last two semesters. So to approach next spring, I am going to make sure I work on my book earlier and prepare my weeks to allow for adequate time to study
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Reflective JournalsThese journal entries express my experience as an athletic training student Archives
April 2019
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