Last week I had a difficult conversation with one of my teammates who has been seeing our athletic trainer for an injury. He has a strange injury that for a while, the athletic trainers were not sure what was going on. At first we thought he just had shoulder impingement, but it was not responding to treatment very well. He was finally referred to our team doctor where there were neurological pathologies suspected. He went on to get some more testing don where it was found that he was in fact having a nerve pathology called parsonage turner syndrome. After this diagnosis he was told he needs to have surgery to fix it. At first he seemed uneasy about the surgery, but then he seemed to get comfortable with the idea that this needs to happen. This was until one day he came to make in frustration stating how he is going to refuse that surgery and does not care of the consequences because he does not want to lose all the time required for his shoulder to heal after the surgery. I tried to calm him down at first, but he was getting more irritated so eventually I had to match his intensity in order for him to understand me. I explained to him that he would rather lose the few months after his surgery to get better than to lose function of his arm and shoulder forever. I explained how miserable his life would be if he did not get the surgery because not only would he not be able to play golf ever again, but he wouldn’t even be able to put a shirt on by himself, or take a gallon of milk out of the refrigerator. Although he said he did not care at the time, I knew I was able to get into him that this surgery is necessary for him. I talked to him a few days later and he told me while he still does not like the idea, he is going to get the surgery. This made me happy to hear. I know he is scared if the surgery and how his golf game will be after, but I reassured him that he was making a good decision. This conversation showed me a lot about myself. I learned that sometimes you need to be aggressive with a patient to have them understand that an option would be better for them in the long run. I also learned that sometimes, you have to fight for your patient because they cannot or do not know how to fight for themselves. Surgery can be really scary for patents and the will have some low point throughout the process. Being able to keep them motivated and understanding of their condition is important for not only helping them now, but helping them be healthier in the future.
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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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