INITIAL ENTRY- SWAN DISTRICTS

I have been placed at Swan District Hospital (SDH) for my musculoskeletal placement. I go all week from 9am-4pm on Monday and then 8am-4pm on Tuesday to Friday. I have been placed in the outpatients sector; this is very different to all my other placements which have been inpatient settings. I suspect I will see a whole range of patients who are in the acute stage right through to end stage rehabilitation.
I’m hoping to become a Musculoskeletal physiotherapist so I am really looking forward to this rotation.

I have been told by other students to expect to see post-operative patients (total hip and knee replacements and anterior cruciate ligament and rotator cuff reconstructions) and also a lot of post-fracture patients.

If I only see these types of patients, I will be a bit disappointed; the reason for this being that these types of patients will already have a diagnosis of their condition. This means that I will not be able to get practice with diagnosing a person’s problem (from their subjective and objective examination) which is done regularly in a private practice setting.

On this placement I’m hoping to see some patients with some form of neurological involvement. I think neural compromise would be very interesting to see and pick up in a patient. I hope I get some exposure to these types of patients as we have not covered a lot of ground at uni with treating patients with neurological involvement.

I’m hoping to perform my subjective and objective assessment fluently, comprehensively and thoroughly. I think there are a lot more portions to a assessment in the musculoskeletal sector in physiotherapy compared to the other sections ( such as cardio respiratory or neuro) and I’m hoping I don’t forget all my special tests we practiced in second and third years!.

I have been told that at Swan Districts Hospital you often are able to witness surgical procedures; I really hope I can witness one of those at sometime during my placement. I think witnessing something like that will broaden my understanding and appreciation of drastic operations such as total hip and knee replacements.

Im a bit concerned about the distance I have to travel to get to SDH. SDH is a long way away from me and I need to travel along the Reid highway in peak hour traffic to get to the hospital. I will have to leave a hour and a half earlier to get there in time to start the day. I think I will need early nights!.