Final Entry

Placement 2

The last 5 weeks have gone so fast for me and I have learnt so much. I did feel nervous when I first started at the physiotherapy practice yet I settled in quickly and began to find learn how their practice was run. I thought my supervisor’s expectations were fair and realistic for this stage in my 4th year and I was happy that we talked about it on day one to make everything clear. I found out that I was going to be in Mandurah Tuesdays and Thursdays and out at Pinjarra on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. This turned out to have a variety of positives and negatives. Positives were that the week flew by because every other day I was somewhere else. Another was that I became really busy out in Pinjarra having a patient nearly every half an hour by the time the five weeks was up. The only negative of this situation was that you could never see a patient the next day or in 3 days time. This wasn’t a problem at Pinjarra as I was out there more often, yet in Mandurah I found it difficult to keep patients as their schedule and mine didn’t work. Overall it worked out and I saw a variety of patients.

Most patients were very happy to see a student however one was apprehensive and wanted my supervisor with me. I happily obliged and went on with my assessment and treatment. I found that making a patient ‘feel some what better’ is important in a private practice because the patients are paying for it and tend not to return if they are unhappy with the service.

I now feel fairly confident in assessing and treating acute, sub acute and chronic musculoskeletal patients. I am sure I have lots more to learn but I happy with what I have achieved over this past 5 weeks at Mandurah physio clinic.