Link Internship
Animas High School is a project based learning school that prepares students for college and post secondary success. As part of the preparation process, every junior at Animas is given the opportunity to go out into the community and do an internship in a possible career of interest. This takes place at the end of the year, and students are excused from classes as they spend 30-40 hours per week in the workplace. This internship is called Leading Internships for New Knowledge (LINK).
The Company
Mercy Sports Medicine/Integrated Physical Therapy
Link to Website: https://www.centura.org/locations/mercy-regional-medical-center/medical-services/sports-medicine About (can you guess who this quote is from?): "The Mercy Sports Medicine Clinic at Centennial Integrated PT is a clinic of capable of many different and broad-ranging modes of physical therapy, staffed by skilled, smart, and caring health professionals who work together to improve the functional capabilities of patients." -God of Wellness Coaching (Marty) Why I chose them: I chose Mercy Sports Medicine over all of the other clinics in town because the people there seemed way more motivated and happy about their work. I also really liked the fact that they had an emphasis on sports medicine, cause I like that better than just general physical therapy. |
The Preparation (4/28/18)
Surprisingly, finding an internship was considerably easy for me. I was originally going to go out to South Dakota to shadow a family friend doing physical therapy. However that family friend contracted a very rare form of cancer, and she had to be sent to Texas to have it treated, so I decided to not put a burden on her of having an intern. I then decided I should stay local, and I contacted 2 different physical therapy clinics in town. I went and talked to both people, and I decided to go to the Mercy Sports Medicine clinic because it had an emphasis on sports medicine. Finding the internship may have been easy, but filling out the paperwork was a living hell. I had to jump through endless hoops to get cleared for Mercy. I had to get multiple health tests done, fill out endless forms and paperwork, study for hours to take a 45 question test on things that a high school interns do not need to know, and make multiple trips out to Mercy in the week before the internship had started. Thank god thats over now. I have a few different hopes for this internship that I would like to figure out in my time at the clinic. Firstly, I would like to figure out whether physical therapy is a good career match for me. Even if physical therapy isn't a good match, I want to be learn from what I didn't like to figure out a career that I might enjoy. I would also like to get a deeper understanding of the anatomy of the human body, because I really enjoyed Tina's anatomy class in school. What better way to do that then physical therapy right! Lastly, I would like to take away an understanding of what it is like to work a full time job 40 hours a week, because this is something that I am not accustomed to. To learn all of these things, it is important that I come into this with an open mind. I should bring my knowledge of anatomy and my desire to help others. I know that I will not be able to handle any of the patients because I am an unlicensed minor, but if I can bring these things to my internship, it will benefit both my mentor and I.
The Reflection (5/21/18)
The main skills I had to utilize coming into link was my meager knowledge of anatomy, my people skills, and my desire to help others. However, it turns out I did not know as much as I thought I did coming into my internship. After Advanced Anatomy I thought I knew most things about the human body, but within the first 15 minutes of my internship, I learned that I knew barely anything. Throughout the three weeks, Bailey (my mentor) taught me an unbelievable amount of anatomy content, and also taught me (by example) how to help other people that came from a multitude of different situations and backgrounds. For example, there would be people who came in who were fired up and ready to get better, and there would also be people who were very depressed and had given up. Bailey taught me how to support the people who were depressed and help them improve their situation. She also helped me develop my communication skills in a professional setting. Bailey taught me how to have good conversations with her patients while also keeping them focused on the exercises at hand.
My link was pretty straightforward and didn't have many unexpected challenges, but there was one instance when I messed up and learned a great deal. On the second day of my internship, there was a man who came in who had a bad back injury in his upper thoracic vertebrae as well as serious depression. He had no hope about his situation, and I don't blame him. This man had gotten in a car accident with a semi truck, and lost 3 of his 4 children, as well as his wife. We brought him in to a back room, and he told us his story and we cried with him for about 15 mins. His story made was so sad, I wanted to support him in this difficult time. After his appointment I took a break and went on a walk outside with him because I felt for him. I was not supposed to do that, and my mentor was really mad that I left the clinic with a patient. I apologized and everything was fine with my mentor and I. I learned a very important lesson about physical therapy that day. I learned that it is important to sympathize with a patient while they are in the clinic, but that I can't sympathize with a patient once they have left because it violates a lot of hospital policies. I wasn't thinking at the time, but I was actually putting myself in danger by leaving the clinic with the patient because someone in grief like that could do something really dumb.
I may have had that one screw-up, but I was a really helpful intern. There wasn't a lot I could do because it was a medical internship, but I was always asking my mentor what I could do to help. I also would take a patient through their exercises on occasion to give Bailey a break. I was on time every day, and I also came back from all of my breaks on time. I also helped Bailey make an exercise program for one of her patients with a lateral ligament repair. I was efficient and hardworking in the tasks that she gave me, and in my free time, I took on a lot of the busywork that the PT's don't like to do. Bailey would be happy to take on interns from Animas High School in the future, so if any Juniors next year need a last minute internship (or not) feel free to contact her at [email protected].
I was very limited in what I could do for this internship because I am a high school student, so I wasn't able to narrow down my career options for the future or pick a college based upon what I saw. However, it did give me insight into what it would be like to be a PT on a day to day basis. If I choose to pursue PT, I will have some of the knowledge necessary to deal with the emotional situations of patients, and to help them get better both mentally and physically. Even if I don't end up in PT, the people skills that I learned in this internship can be applied almost anywhere in the workplace. This internship didn't help me pick a career or a college, but it helped me with a life skill that I can use no matter where I go.
My link was pretty straightforward and didn't have many unexpected challenges, but there was one instance when I messed up and learned a great deal. On the second day of my internship, there was a man who came in who had a bad back injury in his upper thoracic vertebrae as well as serious depression. He had no hope about his situation, and I don't blame him. This man had gotten in a car accident with a semi truck, and lost 3 of his 4 children, as well as his wife. We brought him in to a back room, and he told us his story and we cried with him for about 15 mins. His story made was so sad, I wanted to support him in this difficult time. After his appointment I took a break and went on a walk outside with him because I felt for him. I was not supposed to do that, and my mentor was really mad that I left the clinic with a patient. I apologized and everything was fine with my mentor and I. I learned a very important lesson about physical therapy that day. I learned that it is important to sympathize with a patient while they are in the clinic, but that I can't sympathize with a patient once they have left because it violates a lot of hospital policies. I wasn't thinking at the time, but I was actually putting myself in danger by leaving the clinic with the patient because someone in grief like that could do something really dumb.
I may have had that one screw-up, but I was a really helpful intern. There wasn't a lot I could do because it was a medical internship, but I was always asking my mentor what I could do to help. I also would take a patient through their exercises on occasion to give Bailey a break. I was on time every day, and I also came back from all of my breaks on time. I also helped Bailey make an exercise program for one of her patients with a lateral ligament repair. I was efficient and hardworking in the tasks that she gave me, and in my free time, I took on a lot of the busywork that the PT's don't like to do. Bailey would be happy to take on interns from Animas High School in the future, so if any Juniors next year need a last minute internship (or not) feel free to contact her at [email protected].
I was very limited in what I could do for this internship because I am a high school student, so I wasn't able to narrow down my career options for the future or pick a college based upon what I saw. However, it did give me insight into what it would be like to be a PT on a day to day basis. If I choose to pursue PT, I will have some of the knowledge necessary to deal with the emotional situations of patients, and to help them get better both mentally and physically. Even if I don't end up in PT, the people skills that I learned in this internship can be applied almost anywhere in the workplace. This internship didn't help me pick a career or a college, but it helped me with a life skill that I can use no matter where I go.
Photo With My Mentor
The Project
For my link project, my role was to come up with a progression of exercises for a mock patient, based upon patients that I found interesting while observing. I picked a patient that had a fracture in his fibula and tore his Syndesmosis (ligament that connects the tibia and fibula). He needed lateral ligament repair surgery to reconnect the syndesmosis. My progression of exercises is one that a patient should go through once they are out of a boot and fully weight bearing again.