First Day on the Job

We toured all of each other's clinical sites yesterday and started today. We lucked out because our hospital is one of the only sites with air conditioning. What makes our site so challenging is that there are no physical therapists there except for the month that there are PT students. So, there is no 'organization' as to who we see or when. There are 3 main units that we will be working on, the orthopedic unit, the neurological unit and the burn unit. We spent all morning in the orthopedic unit. We primarily observed. we couldnt treat most of the children because they were mostly all pre-op (meaning that they were in to get casted for a fracture and we shouldnt be moving and doing exercises with them or we could make it worse). We did help a girl there who has osteogenesa imperfectia which is a condition where your bones are very brittle and break easily. She was 9 but only looked about 2 years old. Her arms were all swervy and her ribs flared due to multiple fractures. We spent a majority of our time in the casting room watching them cast for various fractures and clubfeet. The streets in the DR are crazy, there are no lanes and you go whenever, so almost all of the kids with fractures were from motor vehicle accidents. Tomorrow we are going to visit the neuroligical unit. This weekend, we are going to a rural village and teaching the community on various PT related health issues in spanish. My group will be focusing on wound care and foot care with diabetes. We are going to be paired up and stay with one of the families in the village. Pray for confidence and the ability to learn spanish and comminucate with those around me. Thank you all for your support and prayers!