Before starting my first placement in January 2018 I was apprehensive about what experience I was going to face over the forthcoming weeks. Previously, I had spent the first half of my degree studying in the university; being taught varying assessment and treatment techniques. We had completed exams, assignments and practiced on each other but ultimately the thought of going out and treating real patients with these methods was daunting.
However, despite having some nerves, I was mainly excited as it was now finally time to go out into practice and treat patients which was my main reason for applying to do Physiotherapy. Naturally I questioned if I would be able to do it and if I was I the right sort of person to be a Physiotherapist. However, the biggest reason I was anxious was due to the pressure I was putting on myself. I wanted to be good at what I was doing and students have a tendency to overthink when it comes to these areas which can be counterproductive.
My first placement was a Non-Invasive ventilation ward and many of the patients were in the final stages of life. This reality hit home quickly as the first patient I treated passed away later that day. However, there was no respite as my educator immediately asked me to auscultate one of the patient’s chest and interpret their blood gases and feedback what I felt was going in. Panic was my first response- I’d only been there five minutes and I was expected to know all of this already!
I listened to the patient’s chest and had a look at the blood gas results and honestly said that I didn’t know. Looking back now, I realise that I panicked and didn’t attempt to answer the question as I was worried that I would get it wrong and look silly in front of the person I really wanted to impress. My educator later said to me that I wasn’t expected to know everything and that if I could show initiative and learn from what I was seeing and doing, she would be happy with me at the end of my placement.
At the end of that day. I decided that when I was asked a question that I would always give an answer and I have stuck to this through my following placements. I told myself that if the answer was wrong, I would make a conscious effort to move on at the time, look up the answer when I got home and share this with my educator the next day. This helped me to meet the making criteria for learning and development and allowed me to progress whilst on placement.
Everyone is different in how they learn but for me this was the most effective way. It helped me understand theory that I had learnt at university and I felt confident in clinically reasoning my decisions and thoughts. I have never been able to sit and read a book for hours and remember what I had read. I believe my strengths lie in practical work, by doing something in order to learn and on placement I was able to do this.
University has provided the basic knowledge for me to go out on placement but the four placements I have completed so far have allowed me to gain so much experience in manual handling, assessment and treatment techniques and this has allowed me to develop as a Physiotherapy student. Practising on your friends at Uni is not the same as treating real patients. I believe it helped but I feel that when you start using techniques on actual patients is when you begin to understand and remember what you are doing.
Mainly, we all want to do well on placement and everyone wants to know the answer to questions, but we aren’t expected to know everything. Many of the Band 7’s on my placements who had worked there for 30 years would say they don’t know everything- this helps me realise if they don’t know all the answer despite all their experience, why would we be expected to?
My top tip for placement would be to not put too much pressure on yourselves; make use of all the opportunities that the placement offers you. Ask questions as much as you can – the stories and tips that I listened too from my educators and other members of the teams were quite often the key to me being able to understand what we had been taught at Uni.
Stay calm and enjoy the placement- it’s the reason we all applied for Physiotherapy in the first place and I think the more you enjoy it the more you will learn from it.
Coventry University Student Physio
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