Blog 11: Holiday Project Update

1. Over the break, I did some more hours with my mentor. It was pretty slow since I went in a few days before Christmas, but hey, hours are hours right? I also did a little catching up on research checks. I went back and finished notating sources I hadn't completed.

2. The most important thing I learned from the hours I did was that physical therapy can be very physically and emotionally draining for the patients. I was observing my mentor work with a woman who had shoulder pain for the past year, and all of a sudden the woman sort of broke down, like not really crying, but not really not crying, you know? Regardless, she appeared to be very distressed. I overheard her say how she was just tired. Tired of the pain, tired of not being able to handle simple motor function, and tired of being tired of all that stuff. Sometimes the marginal improvements from weeks of physical therapy can be underwhelming at best. I know from personal experience how frustrating it is when you feel like you're not recovering, or not recovering fast enough. That's just something that really stuck with me from this mentor ship experience. The emotional toll can be severe, and it's something you don't really stop and think about 'till it's staring you in the face.

3. If I could interview my mentor, Andrea Haston, again, I'd definitely interview her for this 10 question. She's very knowledgeable and passionate about her work. If that's not an option, I'd have to go with her co-worker Manny. Manny is a PTA, so he works directly under my mentor. He gives off this vibe of wisdom, which I think is rad. He's definitely someone I'd be down to interview.

Happy Thanksgiving

Man, it's been too long since I last did mentorship. I kept meaning to go during this month, but I kept putting it off because I was feeling pretty bogged down with school and other things. When Thanksgiving break rolled around I thought about hitting up my mentor, but I decided not to since it was a holiday and everything. I didn't want to bug her if she was taking time off for the week. I've been feeling kinda guilty since I've been slacking on senior project a little bit. This November my priorities shifted to college related stuff. I wanted to really concentrate on filling out my college apps and writing the various personal statement papers. I'm proud to say that most of them are already submitted, and the rest aren't due until mid-January. With that weight off my shoulders, I feel ready to hop back on the senior project grind. I definitely want to do a good amount of hours in the next two weeks. I've got a lot of catching up to do for my independent component.

One cool thing I learned regarding my topic was that UC's do not offer kinesiology majors, so in California, if you want to be a physical therapist, you're better off doing your undergraduate studies at a CSU. And the money you save by going to a CSU rather than a UC can go towards paying for grad school later on. I'm not planning on being a physical therapist, but money saving tips like these get me pretty stoked for some reason. I guess it's because I'm Chinese. #asianstereotypes

So yeah, that's about it. And I swear I'll start logging hours again. Double pinky-promise.

Blog 10: EQ

1. I reviewed the rule of three for writing an EQ.

2a. No; provides framework of study, can be argued, but wording doesn't make sense. 
2b. Yes; provides framework for study, can be argued, wording makes sense
2c. Yes; provides framework for study, can be argued, wording makes sense
2d. Yes; provides framework for study, can be argued, wording makes sense

3. EQ Revision: How can a physical therapist best ensure a patient is efficiently cared for in an outpatient physical therapy setting?

Blog 9: Lesson 1 Reflection

1. Positive statement - I'm kinda proud of how I didn't figure out how I was going to present my information until like 3 minutes before I presented. I think I did a real good job captivating the audience and keeping them interested throughout the entire 10 minutes.

2a. I would give myself an AP. I think my presentation itself was good and interesting but I think I may have skipped some of the key points in the rubric, just because I got too caught up in the speaking aspect of the presentation.

2b. I don't think I cited enough sources, I also didn't really utilize my prop because I ran out of time.

3. I think the conversational tone I took up worked pretty well. A lot of times it's easy to lose your audience because the content is dense or not that interesting, like my topic, physical therapy. So I think talking to the audience more casually made my presentation more interesting.

4. I'd go back and probably time myself before I presented to gauge how quickly I needed to say my info. I almost ran out of time, and it was pretty scary because I barely had time to cover my points.

My mentor's been AFK...

I actually haven't done any mentorship hours since I scheduled interview #2. I'm not being lazy I swear, my mentor was in Belize for 2 weeks. So I haven't really been doing much in the way of senior project besides prepping for the lesson presentation. HOWEVER, I did happen to come across this pretty rad video about physical therapy for PTs and PTAs. It's nothing I haven't heard before, but it's interesting to see different physical therapists and their perspectives on what they do. I really like how it's just a bare-bones, no frills video on the basics of physical therapy, but it's still really informative. I actually found it pretty captivating. Wish I had more to say for this blog post, but like I said, my mentor has been gone. Next month's extra blog post will be way better, pinky promise.  Till then, here's that rad video I was talking about. Cheers.

http://www.apta.org/YouCanBeMe/

Blog 8: Research and Working EQ

1. Working EQ: What is the best way to ensure a patient is efficiently cared for in an outpatient physical therapy setting.

2. Possible answers

• effectively utilize physical therapy modalities and plans of care
• individualize treatment based on patient's medical history and initial evaluation

3. The most important source I've come across that helped me come up with an answer has been the book "Introduction to Physical Therapy for Physical Therapy Assistants." It goes into gratuitous detail about what it covers and it's been really eye opening reading it the past couple of weeks.

4. My mentor is Andrea Haston, and I'm doing my mentorship at Casa Colina. Part of my EQ answer was taken from my experiences at my mentorship i.e what I've done around the office, what I've seen, and how my mentor deals with patients.

Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1. For my independent component I plan to do more hours with my mentor at Casa Colina.

2. My 30 hours of extra research will be done in the form of spending 30 extra hours at Casa Colina Centers for Rehabilitation

3. Just being at my mentorship and observing what goes on in a hospital setting has taught me a lot about physical therapy, and I feel my knowledge on the topic grows each time I go in for hours. Slowly but surely my mentor is letting me do more to help out which I believe will teach me even more about my topic.

4. Updated Senior project hours