Confusion

This one relates to last placement where i was on the wards for half the day and in the outpatient department for the other half.

In the outpatient department there was no specified supervisor that you had to present your subjective/objective findings and/or treatment ideas there were 6 different physios and whoover was available was the one that was to be approached for guidance. It was expected that if you were dealing with a patient then all your assessment findings and clinical reasoning related to that patient should be done with one physio to avoid confusion.

I had a new patient come in and sure enough did my subjective and went out to discuss my findings with one of the available physios. I went back into the cubicle and did my objective and came out again to discuss my findings when i realised the physio i was dealing with had left for a meeting. I was left to deal with one of the other physios who was available at the time.

Once our discussion started they were continually questioning the objective assessment i had been performing and considered it necessary to perform further assessments. All the assessment performed was based on my initial discussion with the first physio who had now left and the new physio seemed to have all these new and different ideas regarding pathology and diagnosis. This was a situation that occured at least every week during my placement where i was made to deal with two physio regarding one patient.

It made the process extremely difficult and frustrating as i realised all physios have subtly different methods and techniques with their assessment. This made the whole process a lot harder then it had to be. When i presented the issue to the supervising physio he simply said thats the way it is and offered no solution to the situation.

It made me realise i pretty much have to make the best of the situation available to me and although it often took longer and was harder it was something i had to deal with whilst on this placement