Rotation 1 Fourth Year - Initial Entry

I am really looking forward to this placement, for a number of reasons, but along with the feelings of excitement come feelings of trepidation and mild anxiety. The excitement is due to the fact that my 2nd year placement at Bentley Hospital Outpatient Department was such a success and really set up my clinical placements for the future to be viewed in a positive light. My placement at Armadale Hospital also taking place in the Outpatient Department fills me with good memories of successful patients, many learning opportunities and 5 weeks of my confidence in myself and love of physiotherapy growing gradually. I hope that my experience at Armadale is a similar one.

My feelings of trepidation are due to the expectations of me growing now that I am a fourth year student. I have heard from past students that expectations of us are high – new graduate level by the 5th week on the placement – and that most people’s marks on placement drop compared to the marks they received in their 2nd and 3rd year placements. It is not the drop in marks that concerns me but that the lack of flexibility with the knowledge we are expected to have will decrease the learning opportunities presented to us. If I leave Armadale Hospital feeling confident to treat patients on my own in the musculoskeletal field, I will consider the placement a success.

I have read from the fourth year presentations given on placements last year that I will start my placement with a considerable amount of supervision, and that this will gradually decrease as the placement continues. I expect that my patients will represent a variety of musculoskeletal disorders/problems, ranging from the usual such as ankle sprains and TKR to the not so usual. I expect to get a considerable amount of patients with back pain as this is a common condition, and one that I am looking forward to treating as I am not overly confident with the condition and have never seen or treated anyone with back pain before. I will be expected to be a professional member of the physiotherapy team, proficient in both subjective and objective assessment and attempt to the best of my ability, experience and knowledge to clinically reason and then perform an effective treatment of the patient. I will be expected to improve significantly from day 1 of placement to my final day, especially in the area of clinical reasoning.

I think that the placement will be structured in one of 2 ways: supervised with supervision gradually decreasing, or leaving the patient to discuss their assessment and treatment with the supervisor. This is based on my past experience at Bentley and from what I’ve heard from other students. I think that both ways are beneficial, however I hope that I will experience the latter at Armadale as I believe my clinical reasoning and patient communication are far better when I am left on my own as I don’t feel as nervous.

I believe my role at the hospital will begin as a combination of an observer and a student therapist, and as the placement goes on will eventually be purely as a therapist. Whilst I believe I will be expected to conduct myself as a confident and proficient therapist I also believe it is important I remember my role as a guest in the hospital and my role as a student, continually learning and observing those with a much greater pool of knowledge and experience than I have.

Overall I am very excited at the prospect of starting my first fourth year placement, and looking forward to the skills and experience I will gain.