St George's Visit
Yesterday I had a trip to one of the big hospitals in South London - and the day started badly - the bus journey took ruddy ages and I ended up getting off and running through the side streets. I got there, apologied (I was only a few minutes late) and set off to Geriatrics, which was my first port of call. To be honest it's a bit misleading, as a lot of patients are at the older end of the scale.
A lot of the work was assessing people, trying to get them moving, checking their balance, and a fair bit of physical work helping support them. This seemed to be a theme throughout the day - except for outpatients, most of the time was spend with mainly rather "out of it" people. I found this rather uncomfortable - and do wonder whether I would find it extremely depressing doing this for large chunks of time. I main aim would be to specialise in Sports Physio, or at least outpatients, but there's a rotation system that you have to go through first.
Outpatients was probably the highlight of the day - I only got to see one patient, but she was a total hip replacement op coming in for a follow up. It was interesting to see how things had progressed after seeing the THR peeps at Shirley Oaks. Another interesting case was a guy who had somewhat sciatica-like symptoms, but swelling in his feet and ankles. Again - we mainly spent time checking his movement and balance, and I would like to have been able to delve deeper and find out more about what was going on. We also did some rehab with a fairly mobile patient called Eddie, and did some slaloming on his zimmer frame and ctach and throwing exercises. It did all seem a bit basic though and could have been done by someone less well trained - or so it seemed.
I'm not rather unsure - I loved the outpatient stuff, and if I specialised in sport later on, can see myself really enjoying the job, but I did find a lot of the rest of the job rather samey - going round people who were pretty unwell and just running them through basic exercises (mostly the same ones) to see if they were well enough to go back to their life outside hospital safely. One of the fizzios also warned me that 90% of this year's crop of graduates were yet to find jobs, which is worth thinking about. The NHS has a big funding crisis, and whether you like it or not, in the two years after graduating it would take me to qualify fully, Id be stuck with that, the same goes for being a doctor.
I need to think on this - I like the end result of doing physio very much, I'm just not sure how I'll cope on the route there.
A lot of the work was assessing people, trying to get them moving, checking their balance, and a fair bit of physical work helping support them. This seemed to be a theme throughout the day - except for outpatients, most of the time was spend with mainly rather "out of it" people. I found this rather uncomfortable - and do wonder whether I would find it extremely depressing doing this for large chunks of time. I main aim would be to specialise in Sports Physio, or at least outpatients, but there's a rotation system that you have to go through first.
Outpatients was probably the highlight of the day - I only got to see one patient, but she was a total hip replacement op coming in for a follow up. It was interesting to see how things had progressed after seeing the THR peeps at Shirley Oaks. Another interesting case was a guy who had somewhat sciatica-like symptoms, but swelling in his feet and ankles. Again - we mainly spent time checking his movement and balance, and I would like to have been able to delve deeper and find out more about what was going on. We also did some rehab with a fairly mobile patient called Eddie, and did some slaloming on his zimmer frame and ctach and throwing exercises. It did all seem a bit basic though and could have been done by someone less well trained - or so it seemed.
I'm not rather unsure - I loved the outpatient stuff, and if I specialised in sport later on, can see myself really enjoying the job, but I did find a lot of the rest of the job rather samey - going round people who were pretty unwell and just running them through basic exercises (mostly the same ones) to see if they were well enough to go back to their life outside hospital safely. One of the fizzios also warned me that 90% of this year's crop of graduates were yet to find jobs, which is worth thinking about. The NHS has a big funding crisis, and whether you like it or not, in the two years after graduating it would take me to qualify fully, Id be stuck with that, the same goes for being a doctor.
I need to think on this - I like the end result of doing physio very much, I'm just not sure how I'll cope on the route there.
posted by XFR Bear @ 1:08 pm
15 Comments:
The same situation is happening in nursing Bear. Cask is not flowing in the NHS right now and hence why Cameron made his speech yesterday... he knows that is going to become the political football which will win the election.
As for the types of people you'll see and come across... as Benz said yesterday... unfortunately 90% of your work throughout the course and following graduation is going to be doing what you need to do in order to get where you want to get to.
*CASH is not flowing.
D'oh!
I'll be happy if we have a flowing cask
yes, I realise it's about getting to where I want to at the end of it, but if the journey is too tough...
I kinda said "no more crap" when I quit the last job - guess maybe I'm going to have to - the end result should be good. There is a sports science qualification out there where you can add a year on to become a sports fizz - might be an alternative route
who knows?
It's made me aa little nervous about continuing either way
Not sure what I'll do if I don't pursue this
If you want to specialise in sports fizz / rehab, then why don't you look into that sports science/fizz qualification more?
love the sound of the flowing cask too....;o)
and THATS why they want you to do the observation
So you can see what the real day to day work is like
I suspect its a small minortiy that actually end up in sports physio as a sole occupation-you would need to have enough private custom to make that viable.
I know of one GP who has an excellent sports medical qualification, has worked on the ski slopes for 4 years with this, and is now working as a GP as the NHS will no longer fund the sports rehab clinic he used to work in
But thats the whole point of this year out-find what you really want to do-isnt it?
we-e-elll...yes and no.
I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do, and this year was about making it happen - and take time to chill as well.
I still think I'll enjoy the sports side of things - no probs with that - it's the route to get there that's the issue
mmmmmm
Have you researched how easy/hard it is to get a job doing pure sports physio?
Cos the NHS arent that great on sports injuries
It would be outside the NHS Benzy - I want to be my own boss, or at least as part of a group of peeps
yes
i think you would need to be outside the NHS
dont know how easy that is though
In medicine you either get lucky and "inherit" a private practice, or you are quite senior and build a reputation first
which means doing "time" in the NHS first
dont know if Phys is the same-but i am sure you have looked into it
haven't got time to get senior though Benzy - I'll be 48 by the time I qualify, so can't do 12-15 years as that'll only leave a few until retirement!
well--i am assuming phys aint the same as medicine???????????
If you really want to do it, then don't you do what is necessary to get there?
sure - it'll still take a while though I think
nothing worth doing has an easy route
I don't mind hard work, it's stuff that'll do me head in that's worrying me
and yes, I guess when all's done and dusted I'll be happy, just not sure how I feel about lining myself up with two years of stuff I'm unsure about on the way there
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