Very lucky

Hi guys,
Had an interesting experience on my rural prac this week. I am working in a private practise. REALLY great place, everyone is so helpful and teaching me a lot. I’m been helped with everything from taping to Cx mobs and manips. It really is a cool placement, feel very lucky to have got it. Anyways, one of the guys working there is a manips physio, and funnily enough he and a few other people actually started up the manips post grad course at Curtin. He has been working as a physio for over 40 yrs. When ever I have a spare slot I try and jump in with him and watch him work. He is really a good tutor, 15 minutes with him, I can feel my brain trying to tick over and have a big grin on my face. With PAIVMS and PPVIMS of the spine, according to this fellow the most important thing is the basics and not thinking too much and just feeling. When I say basics I mean, letting the patient get used to your hands, body position, hand position, technique (don’t be too firm, if your doing a PA make sure its PA/inline with the joint, physio biomechanics), and thinking about movement diagrams in comparison to what your feeling, R1, R2, P1, P2, always reassess after each particular intervention and having a rational to why you are doing something.
Another comforting thing I have noticed is that EVERY physio does things differently, especially when working on the spine. One of the guys said to me there is a wrong way to do something, but there are many right ways to do something. It’s quite amusing actually, I’ll be watching someone treat something one minute, and the next minute I will be watching another physio treat something similar in a completely different way and the patient in both cases will leave happy with what they have paid for.
I have taken a lot of confidence away from this clinic. One major thing I have been told to remember in this sort of setting is to never let on that you don’t know what’s going on. As soon as a patient sees your lack of confidence in your own ability to help with the problem they will switch off and not listen to a word your saying. Of course if you are really stuck then its better to be honest and ask them to see someone else. But in physio there is always going to be some trial an area, it is just the nature of human beings. We all respond differently. Also a patient hasn’t spent 4 yrs at uni learning what we have, so things which may seem basic and silly mistakes to us, a patient won’t realize it’s a mistake and will just think its part of our Ax, Rx.
Another great thing about this clinic is seeing how a private practise works, and learning how to work in such short periods of time. Ie prioritizing and cutting back Ax’. I feel I am much more prepare for private practise work if that is what I choose to go into in the future.