My first clinical rotation will be in an acute care setting. Can anyone explain what a typical day consisted of, for example, were you transferring patients in and out of bed all day, were you able to progress through an initial evaluation on your own, did you just teach patients exercises, how much of you time was spent documenting ,etc....Just trying to get an idea of what student pt's are expected to know and do from their clinical instructor......responses are greatly appreciated.
Hey DMACK22!
You're in luck! I just finished up my acute care rotation this past week! Let me detail you how it went at the hospital at which I observed:
7:30AM: Arrive, take a quick look at yesterday's patient charts to see if there are any big changes.
7:50AM: Board meeting: assign pts to PTs, PTAs, OTs, and students; trade pt cases; remove pts that are d/c
8:00AM: Chart review of previous and newly assigned pts.
8:30/9:00AM-12:00PM: Start seeing pts on floors. We try to do evaluations, then go on to see previous pts for bed mobility, transfers, gait training, AD training, etc.
12-1PM: Lunch
1-4PM: Continue seeing pts.
As for seeing patients, the CI would be with us and teach us how things are done at the hospital the first week. We get to participate in pt initial evaluations and reassessments. Second week, we are then given more independence. The CI is present, but we perform the initial evaluations, and the CI would chime in now and then. CI is still there for treatments. Third week, mostly the same, but we're given more independence with everything. Fourth week, we're on our own. The CI is not present, but reachable, either somewhere else on the same floor, or with a pt.
A lot of time was spent on bed mobility, transfer, and gait training. So that is what I would do. We did prescribe therex, but the bulk of our time was teaching how to move in the bed, get out from the bed, and mobility OOB.
Make sure you know those basic skills you learned in your first year. Take into account the pt diagnosis and premorbid condition when designing txs. Was this person walking before hospitalization, and now he can't even stand? That kind of stuff.
Documenting took a lot of time, especially in the beginning since you're learning a whole new documentation method.
