Hi!
Weeks 1 and 2 are done, and thanks to a hurricane…
…Week 3 was pretty much non-existent.
I am currently evacuated from Miami and waiting out the hurricane in a less coastal part of Florida.
So I decided to write you what I have learned in PT school so far.
Very nice shoulder flexion and internal and external rotation, Bey.
#1 What classes I’m taking
Yeah, it took me 2 weeks to even grasp what classes I’m taking. They all have similar names like Musculoskeletal Anatomy and Movement and Function and Therapeutic Exercise, and they all kind of overlap. This is a good thing. Because we are taking 6 classes in this very first semester of PT school. Which is overwhelming. But it is less overwhelming since they all overlap, so it’s kind of like one gigantic class? (That consumes your every waking moment…yay)
#2 Where stuff is
Most of our classes are in the same building, so very easy to find, but locating the microwave was a very important first step to PT school happiness
#3 Random general stuff
I’m just going to list for you, in no particular order, the kinds of things we have been learning.
- We started with the shoulder. (OK I guess I am going in order). We learned the anatomy of the shoulder including every notch and bump of the bones, the muscles, the nerves. If I could give one piece of advice to someone starting grad school in like a month and wondering what to study, it would be allll the OINAs.
- Joint Mechanics. The primary work of an orthopedic PT would be the joints and their movements. That would include all the muscles, bones, ligaments, and nerves surrounding that joint, but also the exact way that each bone and ligament moves. This is very very precise, but learning about this also elucidates many other things like how to do MMT and why the muscles, bones, and ligaments are shaped that way.
- Exercise is important. Going to PT school makes you want to go to the gym. We emphasize the value of exercise and the hundreds of benefits that exercise offers. Basically a pep talk every single day. Plus almost all of my classmates are the type of people who use the word “gains” in every day conversation.
#4 Random specific stuff
- OINAs for shoulder and arm
- All joints rotate in the direction of movement. If a bone is convex moving on a concave surface (like the humerus in the glenoid fossa), it slides opposite the direction of movement (if you raise your arm, the humerus slides down in the joint). If a bone is concave moving on a convex surface (like the tibia on the femur), it slides in the same direction of movement (if you raise your foot, the tibia slides up in the joint). So for the shoulder the bone slides opposite of the direction of movement, elbow is same, wrist is opposite, and fingers are same. For the leg, hip is opposite, knee is same, ankle is opposite, toes are the same.
- An x-ray is called a radiograph
- Force couples of the shoulder are deltoid & ITS, trapezius & serratus anterior, rhomboid & teres major
- Benefits of exercise
- How to take BP (I still don’t really know how to do this)
- The ICF model
- History taking: Demographics, Chief Complaint, Impairments, Functional Limitations, Other tests/treatments, Past medical history/surgical history, Medications, Risk Factors, Prevention
- Physical Therapy Progression: Evaluation,
Basically I learned that lists and memorization are a big part of the initial stages of PT school. Try to understand, but really sometimes you just need to memorize.