Y3S1W1: Pops!

Physio has hit the ground running, smashing almost all of our lectures this week for sixes! (The excitement of cricket world cup is still wearing off).

Here is our paper lineup for semester one!
PHTY353: Pathology - the scientific basis of disease!
PHTY354: Physiotherapy Rehabilitation Science 2 - there will be three modules covered in semester one. These modules are musculoskeletal, neurology and physical agents (electro-therapeutics).
PHTY355: Physiotherapy Clinical Practice - the more placements, the better!!

We have 8am starts again this year. Our timetable is even busier this year than it was last year. Here is a sneak peak at next weeks timetable. Thankfully, we're each in our own group (A, B, C & D). Each group will cycle through a three week period with three placements per week. My placement begins in a few weeks time. We will all have Umove at some point during the year too - this will be my  first placement. I'll fill you in on these details as they happen.

We have been informed that our grades in year three will directly influence who can apply for honors next year. There are six places up for grabs for the top academics of my year group (provided they achieve an average of A- or higher). I know of quite a few students in my cohort striving to gain physiotherapy honors. I wish them luck! On a slight change of topic... I was talking to a PhD candidate, who was doing their research at the School of Physio, about academic life and one point of our conversation in particular struck my attention. Their reality was that, of the three common career areas (teaching/lecturing, researching and practicing physiotherapy) they [realistically] were only able to pick two (research and clinical practice were his current two picks). It reminded me of the meme 'good grades, a social life, & a good nights sleep - pick any two' that was making its rounds on social media a few years ago. I'm definitely prioritising good grades - the other two will probably change on a week to week basis.

This year in our neuro rehab (PHTY354) we will study, in depth, the physiotherapists role from acute care to community rehab, and every step in between. On Monday we jumped straight in to management of acute care (intensive care, high dependency and acute stroke units) neuro rehabilitation. Content has picked straight up from where we finished off last year. Physiotherapists have a role to help patients who have been admitted to hospital with traumatic brain injury, stroke etc. Their lives are at risk, and our job is to help rehabilitate them (as a part of the multidisciplinary team) as soon as possible. We learned about intracranial pressure (ICP) and monitoring other vital signs, the contraindications and obviously the importance of physiotherapists in these early stages. Neuro labs will comprise of self-directed learning modules which form a portfolio to be assessed by the end of the year.

Pops is pathology for the professional health science programmes (medical laboratory science, pharmacy, dentistry and physiotherapy). It might be popular in that it is a shared third year paper of the above degrees but we'll have to wait and see as to whether it is popular with the students... with 8am lectures, I hope the content makes getting up early worthwhile. So far, we've discussed things like staining tissues to investigate micro-structures, cell regeneration/damage/homeostasis and cells/diseases of the blood.

Something else that goes "POP!" in the morning is toast! Wednesday was a drizzly day and I was running behind time for an 8am pathology lecture. I arrived to the lecture on time but had to sacrifice breakfast. Thankfully, the Otago University Student's Association (OUSA) provide FREE breakfasts between 9-10am during the semester and examination periods. I stopped by to satisfy my stomach before popping over the medical library to start combing through articles and physical exercises for our MSK assignment about a patient with whiplash.

MSK for PHTY354 is also a continuation of last years content. Lectures continue to develop our knowledge of disorders, clinical reasoning skills and rehabilitation protocols. We're finishing off our orthopaedic tests and treatment strategies in labs - at the end of semester one we will learn how to safely manipulate (POP! Crack!) the cervical spine. This technique must be learned under the supervision of a registered physio and may be daunting for the physio student and even more so for the recipient. I'm very much looking forward to this! In the meantime, we're differentiating structures and sources of symptoms - starting with palpation of key bony landmarks of the cervical spine and treatment such as PA and unilateral AP mobilisations. Palpation, accessory and passive movements of the cervical spine was challenging and will require some more practice - pressing on deep tissues and nerves hurt whilst compressing the carotid artery is simply concerning! Also, I'm still getting my head around which is the correct way to pronounce "cervical" - one way refers to a region of the spine whilst the other refers to part of the female reproduction system (both are spelt the same!!)

Clinical practice labs this week reminded us of SOTAP notes, how to prescribe walking aids and other useful skills we learned last year. Clinical placements begin next week for the students in the first rotation.

The student exec have been busy again organising social events. The social events are underway next week with 'Wine & Cheese' on Wednesday and 'Social Adventure' (which is replacing 'Flat Crawl') later in the week. I'm heading along to the Wine & Cheese next Wednesday - I look forward to telling you about this more in my next post.

I'm flatting a bit further away from Otago University, in North East Valley, which means I get to experience a pleasant 15-20min walk through the Dunedin Botanic Gardens on most days of the week. The Botanic Gardens offer more than a superb floral display and adventure through the themed gardens. The gardens are a place to feed the ducks (the info centre there gives you free packets of feed for this purpose), occasionally there are morning running courses signposted and over the summer period there are Sunday musical concerts.

If your landlord doesn't allow you to have animals or pets at your flat then you could consider germinating and planting seeds from fruits eaten over the summer period (or just purchase a seedling). The plants will generally need less attention than a gold-fish, cat or dog and can make your study environment a little less boring. I have had some success with a mango seed that I planted a few weeks ago... here it is! If your flat has a reputation for being cold, then I don't suggest you grow mango trees.