lessons learned during placement!

After having been blessed with 2 weeks of placement (in acute care, surgical wing), here are some lessons learned!

• multidisciplinary collaboration can actually happen in the practice setting - it's not just something that sounds beautiful in the world of academia.
• ^ even so, doctors still have so much power.
• It's so hard seeing an elderly man cry because he feels so weak.  And feeling so helpless...
• I really dislike using hand sanitizer now.  I used it after each patient and the smell of alcohol... ew!
• the medical world is so full of abbreviations.... ahh! Some that I became really familiar with are the following: HTN, PNH, THA, TKA, GAU, MMSE, # (fracture), 2WW, RTS, TPN, VATS... I can go on and on...!!
• I feel so much more knoweldgable about THA - Total Hip Arthroplasty, since most patients came in for this surgical procedure.  Hips are so important!  And thus, it's so important to maintain physical health through exercise so that the likelihood of falling would decrease.  FALLS = main reason for why the elderly population come to get their hips replaced.  When you undergo THA, you will have several hip precautions - there are movements that you absolutely cannot do, given that the joint is a ball-and-socket joint, and there is a chance for dislocation.  Patients cannot bend at the hip at an angle greater than 90degrees, they cannot cross their legs, twist at the waist, raise the knee over the hip at an angle greater than 90degrees.  This makes even the simplest task of putting shoes on a difficult one since you cannot bend at the hip for greater than 90dgrees!  Even when you wipe after going to the washroom, you have to stand up and wipe since you bend forward in the sitting position. 
• I loved serving the patients with simple things as getting them water, warmed blankets, and even holding their hands.  This Italian man would hold my hand and kiss it! 
• God showed me the beauty of love.  One elderly couple in particular blew my mind.  The elderly man was at the bedside of his wife from morning onswards, watching over her sleeping, helping with her feeding, taking her out for walks (being responsible for not only her, but her IV pole and her oxygen tank), helping her to the washroom, warming her hands, making her laugh.... This kind of enduring love was so refreshing for me to see.  I'm sure to this elderly man, this sick woman was the most beautiful of all, and it gave him life to be able to serve her in this way when she was so vulnerable.  When there was no walker, she would hold on to the back of his neck, and they would take baby steps to the washroom.  To the outsider, it looked like they were dancing, with no awareness of their bleak surroundings....  They were in love, probably 50 years after having fallen in love for the first time.  :)
• praying is one of the most powerful things I can do as a health care professional.  "And the prayer offered in faith will make teh sick person well; the Lord will raise him up." - James 5:15.
• building friendships with other OTs/others in your discipline will make work so enjoyable and fun. 
• After having a taste of acute care, I don't think this is the area that I want to work in.  I would like to explore the work that OTs do in: mental health, Paediatrics, and hand therapy.
• ^Hand therapy is actually so interesting!  If you think about it, our hands are so integral to us as human beings.  We do everything with our hands!  God made our hands so intricate and complex, that I would love to study it and learn to specialize in treating injuries.  I got the opprotunity to make a butterfly splint, and it's seriously like doing a CRAFT!  You get to cutout a pattern on this cool plastic material (forget the name...), and melt it to form over the patient's hands, and you cut and bend, melt, until you make the perfect splint.  It's truly a work of art to be able to master splints that are comfortable and aesthetically pleasing.  Since I love making origami and am such a crafts person, I think this area will be super exciting!  Next placement? :)
• God is good.  He takes care of His children.