Hey all,
Reflecting on this week it seems my musculo placement is turning more into a psychiatric practical, something that indeed I feel a little unprepared for. I’ve had 3 patients, just this week, burst into tears during their subjective history. Listening to some of their stories makes the exercise prescription and treatment I am providing seem slightly insignificant in the big scheme of things. I know that the chat I have with them is far more beneficial than any hands on therapy I provide.
Many of these patients have been in the “system” for years, with out clear diagnoses and it seems that they end up at ‘out patient physio’ once doctors can’t figure out what is wrong or how to help them. I have heard countless times that they have been told there is nothing wrong with you. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for them.
My question to you is how can we help these patients, who clearly do need physio, when they have such major psycho social issues that traditional physiotherapy will be ineffective if we are unable to provide some psychological intervention/support during treatment. And if this is required of us, then why are we not taught strategies to deal with and understand such conditions/disorders at uni???
Do not say refer to social worker/pyscholgist/psychiatrist as this is not going to help me half way through my assessment when a patient has a massive panic attack and is screaming in a fetal position on the floor (which actually happened today!!). Obviously it is unethical to refuse to see a patient until their mental health is under control…
Jess
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Hi Jess,
I think the thing I’ve learned most after being on clinic the last few months is that what we’ve learned at uni has been the bare basics. We learn the essentials to get us by and its up to us to continue with ongoing learning in areas we identify as deficits. Likewise, in order to apply to the GEM program I had to provide certain pre-requisites, one of which being an introductory psychology course. I agree with you that it would be beneficial to cover this area more in depth. However, given the time constraints of the program in general, I think by Curtin making this a pre-requisite for the program they are ensuring that we have the basic information on certain psychological disorders. So I guess it’s up to us to continue the learning should we identify a need to do so.
Megs
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