Sixth Week - Gait

I have recovered from last week's cold. It would have been nice to have learnt some respiratory physiotherapy at this point to have cleared my own chest from phlegm. No doubt that will come later... I might have to get a cold later on to test it out, as my impromptu attempts on Monday (when I eventually thought to look into it) were flawed.

I have no real sport medic news to report. I had last Saturday off, and will have this Saturday off too. There are three sport medics assigned to the team and there only need to be two attending a game - my turn will come soon enough. We hope to learn some strapping principles of kinesio-tape application at some point too. 

Tuesday was April 1st. April Fools! Alas, no pranks were made by lecturers that morning. In the afternoon PHTY254 class the lecturer sprang what would have been a great joke on us. We had to provide swabs for MRSA testing. Testing sites were: a single swab to each nostril, and another to the perineum - that is, a distal region of skin between the legs, gonad and anus. Our lecturer pointed out that we must take care labelling them as in the past a sample of bacteria that should have belonged down below was found in a sample labelled 'nostrils' - lets hope it was poor labelling.

Physiology lab this week involved electrodes, an electrical stimulator and pumping waves of electricity through the ulna nerve and then through the soleus muscle. We mainly investigated the H-Reflex, recruitment of muscle fibres and tetany. Good fun. I was explaining the cellular mechanisms which trigger the actin/myosin cross-bridging to a student and the lab demonstrator happened to over hear me. To my credit, she said that I explained it very well. With a slip of my tongue, I joked that I should be the demonstrator... and now I potentially have a job for next year!! Demonstrating the Human Body Systems (HUBS191 & HUBS192) labs in semester one and two. Watch this space!

Gait is the theme of the week and relates to movement of body segments that allow us to walk... People have come to study physio from many walks of life. Entry into Physiotherapy at Otago University is competitive (best grades are selected first) and there are limited placings (~100). The main entry into physiotherapy at Otago this year is through Health Science First Year (HSFY). Other ways to enter the course include second year entry (for those that couldn't get in via HSFY in the first year) or through the graduate entry category. These are for people whom, like myself, already have degrees. In my year group there are a few Bachelor of Physical Education students like myself (one in particular has worked with the Crusaders rugby franchise and the Blackcaps NZ Cricket team), a few people have Bachelor of Science degrees, I know of one who has a Bachelor in Massage Therapy (she works with the Highlanders Rugby franchise and has owned her own clinics) and another student has a Bachelor of Engineering!

Here are most of the students in Lab Group A for PHTY254/255. There are four lab groups in the second year (we were the first to organise a group photo!) PHTY255 module this week was on musculoskeletal assessment. We covered subjective and objective assessment, which equates to having a chat with you [the patient] about your symptoms, creating an hypothesis on the problems you present with and then testing the hypothesis for an accurate diagnosis. We would make a treatment plan from there. We have more acronyms to remember: C-THREADS (cancer, thyroid, heart, respiratory, epilepsy, anticoagulants, diabetes, steroids), S.I.N Factors (Severity, Irritability, Nature), 5D's of Red Flag clearing (if you haven't 'got the D' you're cleared for 'manual handling'... of the spinal vertebrae), NPRS, PSFS, VAS, VBI, TOP, and many other short hand notations!!

Anatomy had a good dance and song to go along with myotomes and dermatomes of the upper and lower extremity... it's a bit long to explain in the blog though. We have a secret language where C7 is flipping the bird... and nobody wants an S4.

The Cancer Society Relay for Life was on Friday afternoon - Saturday morning. It was the first NZ University Relay event which is fitting as the University of Otago was New Zealand's first university. There were 46 teams from the many departments and social groups associated with the university. The idea of Relay for Life is to fund-raise and have your team members locomoting around the track for 15 hours where team members could pass the baton on to another team member when they got tired. By the end of the night, the event raised ~$46,500 for the Cancer Society. The School of Physiotherapy had a team 'Physio Kids' entered as well as a massage team for anybody with sore / stiff lower extremities (feet / legs). Here is most of the Physio Kids team! Needless to say, my gait was a bit stiff by the end of the event!!