dimanche 23 août 2015

Clinicals....

3 clinicals
- neuro
-MSK
- cardio...


NEURO :
 should have been my strength....I was ready and I..... screwed up..... I put myself in a very hard position.... I wasn't good. I knew it as soon as I started.... too stressed, not coping well with anxiety and blank brain....
You know when you just do thing hoping that will pass, but you actually not have a clear reasonning.
I assumed one of my examiners thought the same ( saying no no with the head).... During Viva, I thought it was just the time to save my A..

They actually asked me questions to redirect me to a better clinical reasonning. I went on board and showed them what I should have done. I admitted my errors and reorganised what should have been my session....

At the end, I really thought it was the end, that I failed.... I even ended up under a tree crying and calling my aussie sister to tell her the story....
Same situation at home. I just lost control of my nerve.... Hubby probably didn't recognise me.

Finally, I PASSED. That was the biggest surprise I ever had.

Thinking back, I feel they saw that I had a really good hand on technique and that I was used to neuro patient, and during the interview, I probably showed them my clinical reasonning and ticked the box I hadn't during the session.

MSK

not my strength....
But it went smoothly. I knew my assessment; I knew what I was doing.
Still a little bit of fright, when they gave me the file of the patient, I read one paper not realising that it was a surgery report..... Hopefully my patient turned up late and I realised that he had surgery in time. It could have changed the result.

I passed this one too.... youpi


CARDIO,
last one.... stressfull.... because when you passed 2 exams, you would felt pissed off to miss the last....
Easy case with a monk :-).

Still a near miss..... patient became short of breath.... I made him stop and breath deeply.... the assessors asked me what should I do ..... Welll..... well.... of course oxymetry.... ouf, just in time....
Other issue regarding medication.... but I manage to go through....

Then one day, I had that last result.... PASSED.... few hours later or earlier ( can't remember).... My fiancee told me she passed too.

We started together and finished on the same day.... that was the cherry on the cake.... One of us failing would have been hard...

Clinical preparations

Waououh. Hard work . How to be ready to assess and treat a patient when you have no access to australian health as a physio, when no hospital is willing to have you on placement because they are already pretty busy with their own students ...

I had my result somewhere in february or MArch and I had to apply for the clinical before end of June. So our guess was to expect to know the dates by august with a little bit of luck our exam in the last 3 months of 2014. So we needed to be ready in July... Just to give us time to go back to re read everything and really feel ready.... 
 We kept probably 6-7 weeks for each subject

Fortunately I worked as a physio assistant in a community day therapy centre. The physio I worked with , is a great neuro physio. She taught me so much and boosted my confidence. Our boss a physio too, kept telling me that i'll succeed... That was a great help. However, nothing is coming easily.
After my written I resigned from that job but both of them agreed to keep me as a volunteer to support me during my clinicals, so most of my mondays ( where Ben wasn't working in fact) were spent in Sunshine assessing new patients.

My goal was to work hard enough to feel ready on the day. Ready to give my best.

First my fiancee is still  here with me. She passed her written too. We found another frog eater who was a step ahead, having his clinical early 2014. We organised our family life to see each other every single saturdays to study.

We were studying on books , internet and whatever we could find during the week and doing mock exam on saturdays to practise , to ensure we would be confident hands on with a real patient.
She has 3 kids I have 2. Our husbands were not always available to stay with the kids.... but we never cancelled any sessions.  We let the kids play on their own for the morning, spent time with them for lunch then let them play or watch movies in the afternoon.
Our days were starting at 9.30 finishing sometimes at 6. 

 We probably cancelled 2 sessions each as we indulge ourselves with 2 week end away and 1 weeks of holidays each.
It was hard ... exhausting.... especially when the weather is not nice and the kids stay inside for the whole day.... I had crazy kids at the end at times...

But rewarding too.... we were able to seee where we needed to improve and we did improved....

Our friend passed all his exam in a row... success.... it gave us the hope to succeed too.... another lady frog eater... also passed a couple of years ago. she greatly helped.... and participated to our study days....
At times we felt guilty as we were in contact with other overseas physios wanted to join us, but we had the feeling that it  might not be a great ideas. First because of the kids and also the more we are to study together the less practice you do... So we kept our group tiny...

another great help : AAPTA . an association which supports overseas physio. They provide support via their files, written and clinicals recalls, moderator who organise mock for you, study group days..... Very helpful, and quite cheap....
I did all the study days... msk cardio and neuro....

Those months were very busy. I was working as a limited registred physio far from home, was driving to my fiancee house fortnightly and also to the study group in the eastern suburbs... I wanted to attend mock, but after a few, I gave up : people arrived late and then it was just too much...

Organisation has to be great : having not a single family here to support us, I had to do with baby sitters ( great ones by the way).  Ben has to give up sport and was there anytime needed.... supporting me every day.

Finally, we were not ready by end of july.... but more likely by the end of september. We had our dates : october , november and december : 3-4 weeks in between each subjects.... It seemed good.... We finished on the same day...
She had one week holidays somewhere. I took one to go the our friends' wedding in New Caledonia ( 7 days of pure happiness).