Inital entry - Tom Price

I’m looking forward to my time in Tom Price but expecting my musculoskeletal placement to be very challenging. I feel very under prepared and am concerned that my lack of previous experience in the musculoskeletal field will make the transition into the area more difficult. I am especially anxious about my knowledge of the lower limb and upper limb as they were very complex units we did in second year and so I’ve forgotten a lot of the specific details regarding assessment and special tests. Being able to conduct a thorough and correct physical examination will be essential to forming the best treatment plan for each individual patient and I hope that I will be given adequate time to prepare for each patient in the initial stages of this prac.

As this will be our final rotation I also expect that my supervisor will expect more from me in terms of my clinical knowledge but more so in terms of professionalism and communication with patients. I feel confident that I will be able to perform and effective and efficient subjective examination with clients due to the multitude of practice we have had in this area with clinical reasoning exams and thorough information provided to us.

Although I will be primarily based at the Tom Price Hospital I do to travel to Paraburdoo once a week to work and hopefully I will get an opportunity at some stage over the five weeks to visit local indigenous communities. This may be confronting at first but I have travelled to remote Aboriginal communities before and would really like to experience working as a health professional in these areas.

I am hoping that a lot of my skills in this area will come back to me as I get more patients but I believe my understanding of the basic principles of musculoskeletal physiotherapy will allow me to provide a good explanation of the processes to my patients and provide an acceptable initial consultation/treatment. As well as revising my notes on the area, it will be with further practice and clinical experience that my skills and knowledge base will expand.

My main role on this placement will be treatment of musculoskeletal conditions but I have been informed that I am also likely to see paediatric and women’s health patients as well as run exercise classes for older adults. A significant aspect of treatment in these areas will be active patient involvement and motivation to improve, rather than promoting passive approaches to recovery. I feel well equipped to educate patients on the importance of this and provide them with a mixture of passive treatment techniques and home exercises.

I am nervous about being so far from home and on placement in the area which I feel least confident about. However I am motivated to embrace this challenge and make the most of my musculoskeletal experience as well as my time living and working in rural Western Australia.