I Did It: Semester One

I am SO relieved to have made it through this first semester. It has definitely been more than just a small struggle; there are so many things that have been going on, that it really feels great to be done.

All I'm waiting for is my final grade for Physiology, but I passed my other 3 courses, so hopefully I passed Physiology as well! Now, two weeks off of full relaxation and Christmas fuuuuun! :)

T-minus 7 days to survival of Semester 1!

Well, I'm still here. In 7 days I will be done with my first semester of PT school and it has been really wild. I still haven't decided where I want to go for my 1st clinical, and I really need to take advantage of being in the first spot for choosing... I don't really want to think that far in advance, honestly. I'm too busy worrying about my anatomy and physiology finals. I am doing well in both courses, but I am at a borderline A and so one slip up could potentially have me failing either. Although I have my struggles about being in school, I would prefer it to be my decision to quit, not that I failed a course and was unable to continue.

A question I find myself asking a lot is, how do you figure out if something/anything is "worth it"?

Sometimes when I get A's on my tests it doesn't even feel good. Only because I know how much farther I have to go in this journey to even get through school, and because usually it's immediately time to start preparing for the next batch of tests. But, it hit me for a second the other day... I got a 95% in my clinical skills class... That means that I know 95% of what I was supposed to know... That's huge. Why am I acting like it's not? I think that I get so overwhelmed with everything going on around me, that I don't even realize how far I've come in just this short amount of time.

In fact, I know for certain that I passed two of my four classes (clinical skills) and my principles of practice course, because the finals were this week, in what I like to call "Hell Week #2" Remember Hell Week the first time? Yeah, not fun.

However, this time I only cried twice, instead of every day, and I didn't have a complete mental breakdown leading to a horrible anatomy lab practical grade. So, I've improved.

I took yesterday off after my last test and came home and stayed in bed all day, and slept in today and did some Christmas shopping. Now I feel like I'm ready to do this and get it over with.

My anatomy final is cumulative, so it's going to be hard and I need to try to remember everything I've learned along the way, and that's a lot... Physiology is all about digestion which is not my favorite thing to study, so I've got to gear up and get in it.

Hopefully, soon, I'll be celebrating that I passed all my courses and can move onto semester #2.

How I won the lottery...

I know what you're thinking, and no I didn't actually win the real lottery... I can't even win on a scratch off lotto ticket... but I did take part in a lottery where most would say that I "won"... allow me to explain... From the beginning.

At my school we have 4 clinical experiences. When it comes to choosing where you'd like to do your clinical they have instilled a lottery mechanism to be "fair and just". Basically, it happens like this... Before any of your clinicals, at the beginning of your schooling, you get a number. Whatever that number is (let's just go with #20) means that's when you get to choose your clinical. So, at #20, 19 people would get the chance to choose a clinical before you. So, #1 gets to pick first and basically gets to go wherever he/she desires. Then, for the second clinical they flip it, so #1 becomes #38 (in my case because there are 38 students in our class) and #38 becomes #1 so that it's fair.

Now, on the first clinical experience everyone is placed on out-patient orthopedic because that is what we spend all of our time learning about the first year. So, really, there is no choice, because everyone goes to out-patient ortho and you only get a choice as to where you go. The second-forth clinicals are a little more exciting because you can choose in-patient, skilled nursing, pediatrics, cardiopulm, etc... So, I was really hoping I'd get a "late" number so that I'd be near the top for when the choosing actually begins.

Low and behold... I am #1. I get first choice on wherever I want to go for my first clinical. And, I'm probably the only person in the history of ever to be mad about it. I would've much rather have been further up on the list for round 2-4 where there ARE choices, especially since some of the places I want to go to are going to be high on lots of peoples' lists.

But, this must have happened for a reason and I'm not going to complain about it, I'm just going to REALLY research the clinical affiliations and choose the one that I feel will be best for me and keep my fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I'm still freaking out about school, but I'm just trying to push it aside for right now with the end of the semester fastly approaching.

I just keep telling myself, well, I made it through today and that's one less day I have to deal with...

42 more days until the end of the semester.

Oh hi. What's new and exciting?

Same old, same old here. I should really be studying physiology and anatomy instead of surfing the interwebz and writing in this thing, but as soon as I'm done here, I promise I'll get down and dirty with my books.

I went to counseling last week and it was weird; I guess it probably always is... nothing really got accomplished. My counselor told me that I need to not get stressed out about things that don't "matter". For example, my house is in a constant state of chaos because I never have time to clean it. Messes stress me out, thus when I am at home I am immediately stressed due to the dishes not being done, dishes all over the living room, dirt on the floor, clothes strewn about, etc.

Unfortunately, "breathing deeply" does not help me feel better about any of these things, so although I wanted to follow her advice, it's not really doing any good. The house is still a mess and thus I am still stressed.

She also told me I need to join the gym stat. No kidding. Once again, I told her I would do it, and yet I have had no time to go over to join (I suppose I could be doing THAT now instead of this, but oh well). I haven't worked out at all since August and it sucks. I went from working out 2 hours a day 4x a week to zero. I can tell I'm gaining weight and that makes me more stressed. I just don't know how to carve the time out to go when I feel stressed to the max about not having enough time. I mean, I can't even clean my house, let alone leave the house to go do something else. Ugh. I just need to do it and get over it, but I'm not done whining about it.

Anyway, we'll see what happens over the next few weeks when I go and if we can evaluate my study habits and figure out how I can be more effective then maybe that will help.

B.T.Dubs, I got a 98% on my anatomy test and a 98% on my clinical skills written exam. I'm sitting pretty; just unhappy.

So, anyway, I am looking forward to Thanksgiving week because J* and I are heading up to NYC to visit my HS girlfriend and stay for a few days. I cannot wait to get away from school and everything negative surrounding me right now; it is much, much, MUCH needed.

Besides that, only 42 days until the end of the semester. I just keep telling myself as each day passes, it's one less day I have to deal with; I got through it and I just need to push forward.

We'll see where I go from here...

Hell Week

Well, I just finished the week that everyone refers to as "Hell Week" and just barely survived. Hell Week consists of 5 tests in four days and is allegedly the roughest week of the entire semester.

On Monday I had my second anatomy lecture exam, which wasn't too terrible. Although, I felt like I threw up all the information I knew onto that test and felt nervous for the practical the following day. I also had my "standard patient interview" with a faculty member in which he pretended to be a patient coming to my clinic and I had to gain information about him and his injury, hitting a number of must-asks, in an appropriate manner. No problem. Passed with flying colors.

On Tuesday we had our first "check offs" in clinical skills. Check offs consist of palpations and then either gait training/transfers/etc depending on what we have learned. The first check off was palpations of the lower limb and the shoulder and then gait training. You are given 3 structures to find for the palpation part (at random; you choose when you arrive at your check off time) and then you're given a patient situation in which you need to demonstrate appropriate interactions and decision making on choosing the correct assistive device (walker, crutches, cane, etc) for the patient. My check-off was terrible; as I've been writing from time to time I'm having a rough adjustment into school and haven't been happy since I started (in fact, to be honest, I've been quite miserable 95% of the time), thus it was a train-wreck that resulted in me having to re-take the check-off on Thursday.

Also, on Tuesday I had my anatomy practical exam. After my terrible morning I was feeling even more distraught about school and honestly didn't even feel like taking the practical; I just wanted to quit school and go home. But, I'm not going to make a rash decision when emotions are high, so of course I stayed and took it. And it was hard. There were too many people in the room so I couldn't follow my thought process and when the professor called "5 minutes" I had about 10 blank answers. I didn't stay to watch him grade it and later got my grade off the internet... 74%. Ouch. :(

On Wednesday, I had a free day. Some people were still doing their patient interviews, but I had done that on Monday, so it was a quick breather for me.

On Thursday, I had my clinical skills written exam, which went pretty darn well. It's not that I don't know the information, or that it's too hard, it's just that it makes me severely unhappy and I need to decide if I'm unhappy because I am constantly stressed or I'm unhappy because this is not right for me. Also, after the written exam I had to redo my check-offs, and I, of course, passed with a 100% and celebrated with lunch with my one classmate.

So, I am now home and feeling much better because there is no stress on me, however, as soon as it is time for another round of tests I will be feeling the exact same way, so I've decided to go to counseling to see if they can help me sort through all of this so I can make an educated decision that I won't regret.

Until then, I guess I'll just try to deal with being miserable.

First Exams

So, I really don't have a ton of time to write in this thing now that school rules my life... plus, I have about 30 different personal things going on that really make me feel like I'm being pulled in 700 directions at all times. It's weird because school is really making a lot of things really difficult in the rest of my life and I don't know if I should be this angry about it.

I met with my advisor for the first time and she was very nice, but not really all that helpful. I just lied and told her I felt better because it seemed to make her feel better ;)

The big news is that I made it through my first 2 big tests alive and I got A's on both of them. I was so worried after my anatomy test because everyone I talked to had different answers than me and it ended up that all the answers I had were the correct ones; although I did make some stupid mistakes (as per usual). I got a lower score on my physiology test but had felt about 100x more confident about it after I took it, so I wasn't really phased by my grade. My previous high score on a physiology test was a mid-range C; so the mere fact that I got an A was amazing enough for me.

I do think I need to figure out how to study more effectively; after my two tests I have felt so completely burnt out; I'm having a really hard time buckling down to study (as I am writing this right now) and I need to get my act together soon so that I'm not freaking out in a couple weeks when the next round of testing hits.

Anyway, I don't really know what else to say, lots of things are going on and my head is constantly spinning and I'm not quite sure that I'm used to it yet. ;)

My first "real" grade...

Ok, I don't have a ton of free time to post, because our first huge exams are coming up next Monday and I definitely need to study as much as possible. I have a LOT of muscles to memorize and a lot of information to integrate into my brain in what seems like an impossibly short amount of time.

In any case, I wanted to write so that I could have a giggle at myself and also let everyone know that I did have my first "real assignment" and I got a 10/10 on my physiology quiz.

I was pretty excited because physiology doesn't come easy to me and I really didn't use my notes/book at all (only on one question) and I was able to get all the questions right. It gave me a little bit of confidence to just buckle down and get this stuff into my brain.

So, although at times I feel discouraged and unsure, I feel like so far this week, I feel a lot more confident. Plus, my horoscope ruled and I just want to share it with you because it's amazing advice:

"Some construction workers walk along steel girders hundreds of feet above ground with no worry whatsoever. They believe that, if you can walk along a girder on the ground without falling off, then you can do the same 200 feet higher. There's something you must do that you're more than capable of doing. You feel daunted though by the fact that you have to do it in a new way or environment. Just take it one step at a time. All will be fine."

Week 3: I think I can, I think I can...

Although I'm still having a rough time, I did manage to have one really good day this week (and that was yesterday)! So I figure that if I can just start to have more days like yesterday, then eventually they will all be better.

I really want to try to keep being positive and telling myself that I can do this. I am an intelligent person and this is something that I worked hard to get to, and it would be so silly to quit now when I've come a long way to get here, being a nontraditional student.

That being said, I hate feet. No, I really do. There are so many muscles! I used to be worried about being able to name the bones in the feet, but after having lectures on the intrinsic and extrinsic muscles, the bones are literally a piece of cake.

The good news is, we aren't getting anymore new material (muscle wise) until after September 24th, which is our first test. I now have a little over one week to learn all the muscles, their origins, insertions, innervations and actions of the lower limb.

But, I am going to be positive and say that I can do this and believe it! It's going to be a rough ride, and I'm off to a really rough start, but I really want to prove that I can do this. I can do it, these science classes are intense, but I can do it.

Well, I'm going to stop giving myself a pep talk and get back to finishing my muscles flashcards. :)

I dream about anatomy...

Yeah, I'm definitely immersed in my courses. Two nights ago I spent the entire night dreaming about vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius.... Followed by a rousing night in dream land on nerves!

Right now, I'm just trying to keep my head above water... Hoping that I'll click with some classmates soon, that it will all click within my head, that I'll remember why I started this long journey in the first place.

But, right now I've got to take it one day at a time. I tried to stay after class today to study, but I just feel like I'm not getting anything out of it. I came home and spent 40 minutes and got a lot further than I did in almost 2 hours with my classmates. I don't want to give up on group study sessions because there are lots of things I do want to talk over and practice with others, but I feel like I need to get my base built, I need to see what it is that I know before I combine it with other people.

Tonight I get to attend an APTA meeting, and although I'd really like to stay home and study (since I'm in the groove and J* won't be home all night) I need to go and get this marked off my to-do list. Plus, it is about tai chi and I'm really interested in seeing what they have to say. I'm sure I'll write a blog post about it when I have a moment either later tonight or tomorrow, if it's worth sharing. ;)

Anyway, I am just trying to maul through all the personal struggles I'm having while trying to pretend like everything is absolutely fine on the inside . I'm worried that if I don't "shape up" soon that lots of things are going to happen- namely I won't do well on my tests, and I'm concerned about how long J* can be supportive without just telling me to get over everything.

Well, I need to get my shoes on and get ready to leave to go to this ATPA meeting, so until next time!

Interdisciplinary Day

On Friday we ended the week by being required to attend an interdisciplinary event. Basically, students from the graduate school health programs all came together and were able to meet, mingle and then we were broken up into small groups and given a case study. We had to discuss what each of our roles would be within the case study and listen about each others' careers. There were DPT students, MOT students, Nursing students, PA students, and clinical psychologist students present.

For the most part it wasn't that great; it wasn't organized very well and it was very hard to hear the members within your group because there were around 20 groups all in a huge auditorium all talking at the same time.

After we finished reviewing the case study, talking about our roles, etc we had a speaker... Surprise (ok, not really) the person that was the speaker was the person that the case study was built on. (A C6-C7 spinal cord injury; he is categorized as a quadriplegic but has pretty good movement in his upper limbs/body, although in the past couple of years he has lost some fine motor control; his accident was 28 years ago). It was a great story, got me teary-eyed a few times and thankful for everything in my life as well as excited to be able to help make a huge impact on someone's life, much like the doctors/therapists made an impact on him.

The real reason I'm posting this is, though, I was APPALLED by the members in my group and their attitude towards PT/OT. One girl outright asked us "What exactly do you do?" and seemed insistent that we had absolutely no role from the beginning in the patient and was more concerned about what she and her classmates (PA students) would do in the ER.

My fellow DPT student and I, as well as an MOT student did our best to educate those within our group, but honestly.... The profession has GOT to do something about this.

I really couldn't believe the attitudes that came out today and I hope that after meeting me and my classmate that the students we were in contact with can understand that we play a huge role in the patient's well-being.

I'm also hoping that as we all go through schooling, everyone is able to recognize the roles that various healthcare providers play and then acknowledge those roles as being important in their own independent way; not in a competitive format.

A nursing student did make a comment about when being out in clinical (a hospital/in-patient setting) she said that the members of the healthcare team rarely acknowledged each other as humans; they rarely even made eye contact and said "Hello" to each other and she hoped that as we all went through our schooling that we would be able to remember that each and every one of us is first off, a human being, that at least deserves the respect of a handshake and a greeting. Needless to say, everyone applauded after her comment and I truly hope that this is the attitude of all of those in the programs at the university I'm attending, as well as elsewhere.

I Did It: Week One

Well... As I'm sitting on my couch, watching a special on UFO's (trying not to think about the anatomy and physiology I should be studying) I can say I'm officially finished with my first week of DPT school.

It's definitely interesting... in lots of ways. The content is interesting, the way my classmates are all starting to interact is interesting and my mental/emotional state is definitely "interesting". Most mornings start off with me feeling extremely enthusiastic and ready to learn and end with me either almost in tears/wanting to be in tears, anxiety-ridden and thinking, "What the hell am I doing?"

All of my classmates are really nice, and I'm starting to form relationships with most of them and so having people to relate with will be good to lean on when the going gets tough. I'm sure that I'll stick with this, I just want all the fear and anxiety to disappear so that I can remember why exactly I wanted to do this, since I feel like I made the decision years and years ago. (Ok, it was just 2 years ago, but whatever!)

So... what did I learn in my first week?

• Some people have never seen a cadaver before DPT school
• DPT Orientation is very long and is full of the 700 ways you can fail out of the program
• Some of my classmates appear to be light-years ahead of me
• But, when I talk to them, they feel the same way as I do
• I probably should have studied anatomy over the summer even though everyone told me not to worry about it
• I need to learn how to get over my dislike of physiology so that I can do well in the course
• Anatomy is already kicking my ass

So, one week down... only 14 more in the semester! ;)

My First Day

Well, I survived my first day of PT school and am already wondering if it is too early to start a countdown. ;) There are 36-37 students in my class and we spent the morning in anatomy lecture, followed by physiology lecture and then a 4 hour long orientation session that left me literally exhausted.

My classes are definitely going to be very demanding and I'm already dreading September 26-27 because I have my first anatomy exam followed by (back to back, no less!) my first physiology exam and then my lab practical on the next day. The work seems rigorous, but I'm excited to get started to see if I can rekindle the passion I had for this as much as when I decided to go back for my pre-requisites.

Our orientation consisted of having lunch with our advisors, another tour of the facilities (that's three I've had in total; I think I know my way around!) and introductions by all of the faculty and all of my classmates and a lot of going over the rules, expectations and overview of the program.

It was a lot to take in on one day, but I am happy that I am not the only "older" student, as there are a handful of people my age and slightly younger/older that are not coming directly from our undergrad degrees, or related fields.

I feel like so much happened today, but honestly my brain feels like it can't anymore at the current moment, but I just wanted to post and say "I did it! I survived the first day!"

Registration

Well, it's that time again. I just got done registering for my first semester of DPT school today! :)

Of course my classes are planned out for me, but I can't believe I actually registered!
My schedule looks like this:
Human Anatomy (6 credits)
Human Physiology (3 credits)
Introduction to Clinical Skills (2 credits)
Principles of Practice I: Intro to PT Practice (3 credits)
Total: 14 credits

That 6 credit Anatomy scares me, I'm not going to lie about that... plus the Phys on top of it... I hated Human Physiology the first time... I'm really not interested in how things work on the cellular level and my professor was really boring... Hopefully I'll have a better time with it the second time through and with a different professor.

The only choice I got to make was if I wanted to do my anatomy lab on Tuesday or Thursday. I chose Tuesday so that I'm done for the week on Thursdays at 11. No class on Fridays! Although, who knows when all the open labs/potential other requirements will be... But, it'll be nice to be done with classes on Thursday and have the rest of the weekend for studying, relaxing, house cleaning, etc. :)

It's so interesting how different every PT program is... I have a friend who's been regularly taking 17+ credits per semester... I think that I have less overall credit hours because of the modified Problem Based Learning program; a lot of courses are combined, so instead of having four 3-credit courses, I have one 11-credit course. That will be interesting... Hopefully, I made the right judgement call that I feel I can succeed in that type of learning environment when it comes around in Spring 2012.