It was nice to wake up only one hour early to the sound of the rooster outside of my window. I was able to do some reading and catch up on emails as I waited for breakfast. After my meal I headed over for the flag and we began class at 8:15 am.
Today we were in the dormitory for classes. Currently the nursing program has priority over classrooms and the physio class uses the common room of the dormitory for class. We had a fan when the power was on and windows open to provide some breeze. I am glad I did not wear my sport coat today because it was over 80 degrees in the room.
We spent the morning combining lab and lecture for examination screening and the lumbar spine exam. The students have retained a lot of the material from the musculoskeletal course but we did have to work on increasing the depth of understanding. We had to review the psychomotor skills for reflexes, myotomes, dermatomes, and UMN screens. They were very attentive and focused on doing each skill perfect. I heard "Dr. Kyle" or "Teacher Teacher" about 75 times before lunch to get feedback on their technique. (I understand what Olivia means when she says she hears her name all day at school) They had great questions and our discussions about doing special tests and using examination findings to drive treatment were very informative. I think the way of thinking was challenged today but they seemed open to adding a new thought process into their learning.
Lunch was a pasta dish with a sardine red sauce. It was a very different flavor but I managed to eat 2 servings so it was not bad by any stretch.
After lunch our focus was on the objective examination for the entire lower extremity. Luckily most of this was taught a year ago, but having been a student myself I understand how easy it is to forget the material the first time. The emphasis today was improving the hands on skills with the range of motion, strength testing, and joint assessment. Working to make the assessment consistent and trying to "feel" end ranges and motions to help improve their ability to assess symptomatic patients.
The best part of the day was seeing the students growth. One student went from very shy with handling her partner to having full confidence. Another had a very tight grip with everything he did and by the end his partner said his hands were very comfortable and the student even felt the movement at the joint.
I cannot wait to build on the examination skills today using patient cases to help show them how impairments on the examination can drive treatment and how to grade treatment based on severity, irritability, nature, and stage. We will start to really put together the lecture content from Monday and the psychomotor skills from today.
After class, I spent some time with the Dean of the PT/OT department. She just returned to Haiti from America today. She goes back to her husband and family every 2 months. I really enjoyed finally putting a face to an email. The Dean and myself have been working together for 1.5 years via email. It was nice to sit down to learn about her life, her time in Haiti, development of this program, and plan for the future.
Our talk concluded and I was able to do a P90X video before the beef stew dinner.
Ready for a good night rest so we can make up for the lecture we did not get to at the end of the day and try to get back on schedule.
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