FINAL ENTRY- BHC

I thoroughly enjoyed this placement. I have loved living away from home and being independent in that sense. Getting to the hospital was easy and only a short drive from my home.

In the morning I ran the ward so a lot of my patients in the ward consisted of mobility patients and cardio respiratory patients. While in the afternoon I saw outpatients. This meant I got a great range of exposure in the cardio respiratory, gerontology, musculoskeletal and even neurology sectors of physiotherapy. I even saw a lot of women’s health patients. Firstly acutely in the hospital, after they had birthed their child and then 6 weeks after their birth for ongoing problems in the outpatient sector. I was glad to be involved with the women’s health patients, as I had not had a rotation with women’s health before.

I did learn very early on that prioritising your patient list is essential. As there was only one physiotherapist allocated to the ward patients (in the morning from 8am- 12pm) it was imperative to have good time management skills. By the end of the placement I was running the ward independently. This was a great experience.
I was initially expecting a lot of the conditions to be very different from the conditions down in Perth but I found that

I even got to do some home visits with the occupational therapist. The home visits were very surprising. I was able to see how the aboriginal people lived and the great difference between the European/Australian culture and the indigenous culture. I found some of the people lived bellow the poverty line, however they seemed content in their lifestyle. It was very enlightening and refreshing to be exposed to their way of life.
I loved working with the aboriginal people, I initially found it quiet difficult to relate with them but after establishing a rapport with the patients I was able to converse with them quiet naturally.

In the outpatient sector I found that the indigenous people did tend to be tardy, sometimes turning up to the clinic half an hour after their treatment session. Other times they would just turn up on a given day and expect to be treated. It was difficult in some senses because the person needed treatment, so I found myself sometimes working my schedule around so I could see the patient when they presented. I also did find that the indigenous people didn’t tend to do their exercises, so usually I would give them 1 or 2 exercises that I would stress were very important and then tried to kept them as simple as I could.

I have learnt so much from this placment, and i am thrilled that i have had the opportunity to work closley with the aboriginal people.