Of the five domains of athletic training I feel that domain three and domain one are my strengths and domain four is my weakness. Domain one is prevention of injuries and domain three is immediate emergency care. I believe I do well in these two domains because I have always been interested and engaged in these topics of health care even when I was in middle school. I believe I just have a natural ability to learn these skills and have them stick. In my mind I almost prioritize these domains because I can practice and come up with rehabs as long as I want, but I do not have time to research the best way to handle an emergency situation. Something I believe helps me in domain one and three is that it is almost common sense and I have to make it a force of habit.
Domain four is about therapeutic rehabilitation. I would not say I am terrible at rehabs, but I do struggle with coming up with exercises. I know in my head what needs to be fixed, but coming up with new and interesting exercises and progressing them at the right time is something I struggle with. That is why this semester I made it my goal to be engaged with a few rehabs and be in control of them, but it seems there was a lack of athletes with long term injuries that I was able to interact with. Maybe I should have been more proactive and asked to be involved with another preceptor’s athlete. Another one of my goals that I geared to helping this domain is practicing manual muscle testing. I think it is important to be able to isolate specific muscles in order to strengthen them. I think my rehab skills will become more developed overtime. I think what I struggle with the most is that I never want the athlete to feel bored or disinterested so I try to come up with exercises that are new, but I do not necessarily know what else to do. In terms of other parts of therapeutic rehab, I believe my knowledge in modalities is very sufficient and my technique in manual therapy is fairly strong. So I do not think I am a lost cause in domain 4, but I need more hands on opportunities to have my own rehabs and be in charge of them from the time of injury all the way through full recovery when possible.
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My favorite part of clinical this semester has been doing clinical experience with the rugby team and educating the players on what we do as athletic trainers and how we are supposed to be there to support them as a team. It has been very interesting to watch them go from being a small group of guys who have never had an athletic trainer before or even knew what we were to being able to have two full teams to practice with and having players from other sports who know what an athletic trainer is and how we are here to help them. My preceptor and I have played a large role in teaching the rugby team the culture we as athletic trainers have. Over the course of the semester we have taught the team the essentials of prevention for their sport. It was extremely stressful for the first rugby game when there was a huge miscommunication. We got out to the field and the whole team walked up to me and the head athletic trainer to be taped and braced, mean while we had been sitting in the athletic training clinic for 2 hours before their game waiting for them to come in to tape them. After this first game we were able to better communicate to the team that we are in the clinic before their games and practices to prepare them for their activity. It had to be heavily enforced that they would be able to receive more and better care if they were to come in beforehand as well. While it took a few weeks for the players to truly understand what we were trying to convey to them, they now have the understanding and many of them will come into the athletic training clinic before and occasionally after practice and games for treatments. This has been special for me because it gave me many opportunities to promote the profession, talk to coaches, and practice being a professional. This also gives me more opportunities reach my clinical goals. There has not been anyone with chronic injuries in rugby for me to have any as a long term patience and be in charge of their rehab, but as more of them become understanding and reliant on our service I am positive there will be someone who will be a more chronic case for me to work on and build my experience with.
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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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