Y3S1W4: Luck of the Irish

This week is the social sport edition of my physio blog. I'm going to attend as many physio organised social sport games as possible!! Social sports are organised by our student exec. We've got indoor soccer on Monday, netball on Tuesday, volleyball on Wednesday and touch rugby on Friday!

Indoor social soccer, Monday at 8:15pm. Physio students attended their first social 6-a-side soccer match at Logan Park High School's gymnasium. The number of students that attended were almost enough for two teams - great turnout! Our sports rep summed up the match very well. There were a couple of 2nd year 'pros' in our physio squad. For those, like myself, who haven't kicked a ball around in a few years, you'll be pleased to know that we have rolling subs! We beat the opposing team 7-nil, but football was the winner on the day. Social netball was held the Tuesday night at the College of Education Gymnasium. There wasn't a very good turnout - probably given that it was St Patrick's Day. We pulled in a few players from the teams that played before us and put in a solid performance to draw 15 all by the final whistle. It was a sharp learning experience for me - I've never played netball before, so learning the rules quickly was a must! Volleyball was on Wednesday evening at the School of Physical Education, Sport & Exercise Science's Smithells Gym. There wasn't many physio kids that attended this either... my peers didn't even have St Patrick's day as an excuse. I wasn't very good at Volleyball, I think I'll stick to social soccer when I can. Touch Rugby was on Friday. The physio team had two games. I'm not sure about turn out to this as I was at work, but I suspect it would have been good.

St Patrick's Day was on Tuesday, although you may be forgiven for being unaware, especially if you were studying (or adding to a physio blog) in the medical library after the 8am MSK lecture. There was not a single shade of green clothing in sight. The first costume I saw was a guy dressed in a kilt & green top around midday (I'm not sure if kilts are a part of the Irish culture?!) Thereafter, there was quite a few costumes around Dunedin.Whilst most of the students were still celebrating St  Patrick's Day, I zipped out to Hooper's Inlet to photograph the active storm of Aurora Australis. Funnily enough, the night lights matched the theme of the day! I've included two of my photos (I've edited the bottom image).

MSK assignment on whiplash was due on Friday! I finished that off earlier in the week after casually piecing sentences and articles together over the last few weeks. In lectures we checked out sick scapulae and differential diagnosis for disorders of the shoulder. "Sick" is actually an acronym describing signs and symptoms of rotator cuff dysfunction:

• Scapulae malposition on the rib cage.
• Inferior medial boarder winging.
• Coracoid pain & malposition.
• scapula disKinesis 

Another acronym mentioned was TUBS. Tubs is used to evaluate instability and dislocation of the shoulder joint.

• Traumatic
• Unidirectional
• Bankart
• Surgery

In MSK labs, students were putting movement tests to use that they would likely observe later that day (St Patrick's Day). The empty-can test is a upper limb position that is similar to that of emptying a beverage can... funny that. It may be a useful test to see if there is any alcohol left in the can before discarding it to the rubbish. Other tests included the 'speed test' and 'lift off' test - these may sound like useful post-drinking tests too, but really they serve little benefit away from the clinical setting. We later completed many orthopaedic assessments for the shoulder complex!

Pathology informed us on the pathological process of autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, Hashimoto thyroiditis, graves disease, coeliac disease, Crohn's disease, pernicious anaemia, vitiligo, haemolytic anaemia, multile sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjogren's syndrome, scleroderma & rheumatoid arthritis!! Autoimmune disease can occur in a range of local and systemic tissues creating a lot of autoimmune diseases, but luckily the pathological process have similarities! In labs we've been comparing photos of healthy and compromised hearts, brains & livers to that of steak, chewing gum and canned chicken soup. We were able to do some forensic work identifying the time lapsed from the insulted tissue (ignoring the fact that the patient had obviously died)... we're thankful medical professionals don't cut out the body organ and dissect it just to confirm an event happened 'x' time ago (days, weeks, months or years). Some other activities during the tutorial included looking at the blood works of different case studies and describing what was happening.

Tip for surviving physio: if you feel you've over committed yourself to work, university and community events, after noticing that you are already missing most lunch breaks throughout the week and deciding that you actually do value eating, you may decide to reduce your workload. This was my predicament of the week. I had a clash of work and sport medicing commitment for Dunedin Tech football. I know the team has plenty of fresh sport medic faces, so ultimately the decision wasn't too hard. I will pop over to help out when needed though. Being a back-up sport medic is often a good way to reduce workload whilst maintaining those social networking ties. I'll still be volunteering at the sport injury clinic on Sundays (and fortnightly on Monday evenings) though - often multiple avenues arise and you just want to be a part of them all!

It's Hyde Street Keg Party this Saturday. Sports Injury Clinic is on this Saturday too - probably won't save the hospital from student's with drunken mishaps though.