This week there was a women’s basketball game which I was covering. The opposing team did not being an athletic trainer, so I was made responsible for the team with the supervision of my athletic training preceptor. The game went on and there were three minor injuries sustained by the team that I was responsible to take care of. The first girl had been poked in the eye and came of the court. I examined her eye looking for any bleeding, scratches, loss of function, and loss of movement. The only thing I saw was that her eye was irritated, but there was nothing in it. She could still see fine and only said it burned a little, but nothing else was bothering her. I was mostly concerned with her being able to see, but since she could still see fine then I let her return to play. The second injury was a thumb jam. I palpated, did some ligament testing, and did the tap test to rule out fractures and sprains. All test I did were negative. She wanted to get some ice on it, but I knew she would have to go in again because there was still a good portion of the game. I instructed her that having ice one it now wouldn’t help her and she could get some after the game. She finished the game out and got ice after. There was no swelling, redness or deformity. She was mostly just tender and irritated in the MCP joint. The final injury I actually did not see happen. All the girls had run down the court and I was looking over there. I noticed my preceptor walking towards me and she pointed to one of the opposing team’s girl laying face down on the ground. I immediately ran out to her on the court. I did a primary survey to see if she was breathing. Once she was talking I knew it was not too serious. The athlete reported landing on another girl’s foot and told me her ankle was hurting. She was able to roll over on to her back where I did a quick eval to rule out fractures. I first palpated and then did a bump test. All were negative. I then did a talar tils and an anterior drawer which were both positive. I then got her off the court with an assisted walk. I did some more palpation with her shoe off. She was point tender on the Posterior talofibular ligament and the calcaneal talofibular ligament. I then gave her ice. When the game ended she was able to walk back to her locker room, although she was slightly limping. She reported she was having issues with this all season, and she seemed very upset.
Overall, I think I handled everything appropriately and to the best of my ability. Although I did not initially see the athlete I was responsible for go down, I still feel like I did everything correct. My preceptor did not have to correct me or remind me of anything to do, nor did she feel the need to double check. Although this is a simple injury and is clear I should definitely have mastery over an ankle sprain; doing it and not having to be corrected on anything and knowing I did everything right made me feel good. I even got a few compliments from parents and spectators who said I handled her injury very professionally. This just boosted my confidence and excites me for my future. Especially now since I am in process of applying for jobs.
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Trust is important in a relationship between patient and healthcare provider. This is especially true with athletic training because it is very possible that the only time you are officially meeting someone is at the lowest point of a patient’s career. Gaining the trust between your population is important because if they trust you they are more likely to be corporative and attentive which can lead to better outcomes for the patient. Trust important in patient outcomes because it make the patient engaged. If there is no trust, then the patient may decide to not come for therapy appointments. This could lead to some serious deficits in the patient and they will never fully recover. Creating trust and keeping rehabs interesting, fresh, and new are essential to keeping patients engaged and aware so they can make a full recovery from their injury. Some of the easiest ways I believe you can gain trust with you patient is having knowledge on things that the age group of the population is into. Taking interest in them as a person and the hobbies they like will open them up to conversations which will gain their trust. If possible, having a meeting where you can introduce yourself and describe your role in the facility or for the population could help the patient population understand you more and make them more likely to report their own injury to you rather than having a coach or employer mandate them to come see you. Another way I think an athletic trainer can build trust in their patients is by giving a through explanation of what happened to them, how what you are doing works, and how you will help their injury. I believe this can calm a lot of their fear and answer a lot of questions which will help the patient trust you and know they are in good care. Overall, a good patient relationship is stemmed from trust and there are ways to improve the trust to have successful outcomes.
I will sit for my Board of Certification exam in March. So far, I have taken 3 practice exams. In preparation for them I have been looking over my textbooks which heavily look over rehabilitation and therapeutic progressions. I also plan to look over some specifics of emergency care and modalities. I feel once I am up to par on these areas of the practice I will be very ready for the Board of Certification exam. On my first practice exam I did pretty well. I scored an overall score of 73.44. I did well on all domains except for domain 4. There I scored a 59.57 and I knew I would have to work hard to improve my score in this area. Since my first practice exam I have improved my score to a 63.5 and most recently a 77.14. I plan to continue my improvement because I am aware some tests do not emphasis domain 4 as heavily. I know I still have a good way to go to be the best I can for the exam. While domain 4 is my weakness, I have a strength in domain 3 and I do fairly solid in domain 1 and domain 5. I plan to review a few items of budgeting and items pertinent to domain 1 to strengthen these areas further. My overall score on my most recent exam was a 79.4 which I was super excited about. It made me feel more confident than I have with my other two exams. While I definitely have some areas to work on, I feel confident that I will pass the Board of Certification exam.
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This is where I do my weekly clinical blog assignment. There is either a prompt I am responding to, or I just talk about something exciting I saw during the week.
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April 2019
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