The above picture reminds me about all the walks my patients and I have taken as a form of treatment and the picture also got me wondering about how exactly my patients felt when taking those walks. Those walks were to either improve endurance, for gait re-education, having to teach a patient how to use an assistive device, when moving the patient from one ward to the other or when a patient leaves the hospital post discharge. From my point of view, I can only imagine what exactly a patient feels when looking down the hallway of a hospital when doing exercises in the halls.
When I look at this picture it reminds me about the time I spent when I was Eeste Rivier Hospital, which was my first block. This block was my general block of the year and it consisted of different types of patients mainly being patients that needed chest physiotherapy(TB, emphysema, empyema, haemothorax and pneumothorax), patients that recently had amputations, patients that had mastectomy procedures done, patients that have suffered strokes (CVA), domestic violence(burns and patients with TBI due to domestic violence), patients that had knee replacement surgery, patients with sepsis(infections due to diabetes) and many more. There are many benefits with getting these types of patients up and walking for example patients that need chest physiotherapy need to do cardiovascular exercises to help improve their cardiovascular system function and patients that have had amputations will need to be taught how to walk with assistive devises or walk with their current disability. (Perme, et al.2009)
When doing cardio-vascular exercises with my patients I could sense a feeling of being reluctant to do the daily walks. I also feel like the patients think that we are there to “torture” them as it is sometimes very painful to do the exercises. The many patients I treated while I was at Eeste Rivier hospital had problems with their cardio-vascular system thus making it harder to do cardio-vascular exercises with them. These patients were stab victims; haemothorax and pneumothorax (With ICDs), TB patients, emphysema, pneumonia and empyema patients.
When treating or rehabilitating patients that have had TBIs, Strokes, epilepsy and amputations I have had to use the hospitals halls to rehabilitate those patients. These patients were more excited to see me as they were more eager to get back on their feet and walking again. This was especially true for the patients that did not have any cognitive fallout. The minute I got them up and going they were very determined to improve on how much they were able to do the day before and this gave me a lot of joy and a sense of achievement.
It was the same story for those that did not show any improvements, but once they started realizing that they were not improving they started feeling bad for themselves and feelings of depression started to develop within the time they spent there. The one patient (who suffered from a stroke) started distancing himself from the other patients in the room, he didn’t want to take his medication and didn’t even want to see his family. He told me that he was very worried about who is going to take care of his family because he is the main breadwinner. For this patient every time he got up, he was reminded of the fact that he will never improve and be able to take care of his family. This made me feel very sympathetic for him as he opened up to me and it showed me that he trusts me enough to open up about how he feels.
I have experienced patients coming in and out of the hospital, mainly patients that have been discharged, transferred or patients that have died. The above picture reminds me of the patients that have recovered and been discharged after being treated/ rehabilitated by me and it gives me great joy to see those patients walk out of the hospital through those halls. The picture also reminds of sad times when the family of a deceased patient was crying in the halls of the hospital, that specific patient was being treated by me and I still feel like I haven’t done enough to improve the patient’s condition. It also reminds me of the time when one patient was readmitted a few days after being discharged. This brought about a feeling of confusion and a feeling of my treatment methods not being effective as she came back worse than she had left the hospital.
Thus, leaving me with one very important question; is physiotherapy treatment by student physiotherapists effective enough when students are at clinical bock? In one study where a group of third year physiotherapy students and their supervisors were asked, what constitutes a ‘good’ and a ‘poor’ clinical experience. It was concluded that there is a bigger role of the supervisor should play to help the student develop and learn more about clinical practice. (Neville, et al. 1991)
References;
Neville, S., & French, S. (1991). Clinical education: students’ and clinical tutors’ views. Physiotherapy, 77(5), 351-354.
Perme, C., & Chandrashekar, R. (2009). Early mobility and walking program for patients in intensive care units: creating a standard of care. American Journal of Critical Care, 18(3), 212-221.
7 thoughts on “Hallway To Nowhere, yet somewhere?”
This piece is well written and provided me with an understanding of your experience during your clinical rotation. I liked how you linked the picture to the various viewpoints of namely a health professional, a patient or a family member. Providing examples of what the hallways could mean to each person changed how I looked at the picture: from my perspective to other perspectives. There were, however, a few grammatical errors as some sentences could be made shorter through the use of linking words. Additionally, I feel a greater link could have been made between your clinical experience and the ethical dilemma you were faced with. By linking your experience to an ethical practice you would be able to improve the “professional ethics” part of the piece, and through referencing articles you could be able to provide a more suitable resolve to your dilemma. Overall, I enjoyed reading this piece and am grateful that you shared it with me
Thank you very much for the comment.
Thank you for sharing your post, I enjoyed reading it. Your opening paragraph is good as it gives the reader an idea of the theme you will be focusing on in your reflection. I like how your picture relates to a very detailed description of the clinical incidents you experienced during your block with patients suffering with different conditions. However, I feel that your title could be a bit more capturing for the reader as the artwork/picture already clearly depicts a hallway. With regard to your experiences you could elaborate more on how you developed empathy towards your patients and what you have learnt from it. Furthermore, maybe add a few references and add information regarding your understanding of empathy and ethical dilemmas in a clinical setting. For your conclusion, try to make it a bit more thought provoking by leaving the reader inspired and maybe posing an overall statement in the end.
Otherwise, a piece well written that I can relate to having had a few similar dilemmas during my block. Good work!
Thank you very much for the comment
Hi Mbongeni, thank you for sharing the ethical experience with me. I enjoyed your reflection especially the your view on the passage ways of the hospital. I have shared the similar experience while mobilizing one of my patients throughout the block. I have often felt like a physioterrist not a physiotherapist.
I would recommend you look for articles to support your views and to create a greater base of evidence.
There are a few grammatical errors as well as spelling errors. Notable the spelling of Eerste Rivier. The sentence of “I could sense a feeling of being reluctant to do the daily walks” (Paragraph 3) I would recommend rewording slightly to relay the message you are trying to picture. I feel that you have not concluded your piece fully, the conclusion seems to not end the piece but leaves a point not fully elaborated on.
Overall I enjoyed being able to have experienced your reflection and it allowed me to revise on my similar experiences. Thank you for sharing it with me.
Thank you Cayley for the comments.
Hey mbongeni , thanks for sharing such an interesting piece with us, your work was able to “put me in your shoes” , reading your work and looking at the picture made me feel like I was the one walking down the hall with the patients. I do recommend that you fix a few grammatical errors and find more articles linking to your work, but well done