At the beginning of the semester when we first discussed this event, it was so far away that I wasn’t really affected by it at all. For me, it was just another thing to put on my to do list. As we got closer, I didn’t think I was going to be able to participate at all because of my tennis matches. It fell farther and farther off my radar until we were assigned the risk management plan. This assignment was fairly difficult for all of us because there were so many things that we weren’t used to considering. I have never talked about what outsourcing AT work really looks like with any of my preceptors, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. To go even farther, there were so many questions we had because we would be working with young children. Can we splint dislocations? What will parent interactions be like? What if the parents signed a consent form, but tries to deny their child treatment? I feel like once we asked these questions and heard back from Mr. Larkin, a lot of our anxieties were eased.
Unfortunately, I did not get to spend much time at all at the tournament, but I truly enjoyed the time I did have there. At first I was extremely nervous for a few reasons: these are basically babies, parents of young kids make me nervous, I had never been with wrestling before and didn’t really know much about it at all, and being rushed during an eval gave me some anxiety. When I first got there, Amethyst and Audrey were showing me the ropes and telling me the in’s and out’s of how everything worked. Once I got accustomed to the new atmosphere and got an idea of what wrestling culture was like, I felt much better. I thought that having more autonomy would freak me out, but I truly enjoyed it. It allowed me to think much more clearly compared to having someone constantly looking over my shoulder. I didn’t have too many patient contacts, but the one that sticks out to me the most was a child with a busted nose. As I came onto the mat, he was pretty freaked out about it (plus he was losing). While trying to get the bleeding to stop and get the nose plug ready, I was able to talk to him a little bit about how he was doing on the mat. The conversation seemed to calm him down, and the last thing I said before coming off the mat was, “You got this, man. You can do it.” His coached echoed me, and told the athlete, “See! She thinks you can do it. C’mon.” Even though he did not win that match, it was a great experience to speak encourage into a young athlete who had such a strong desire to compete and make his team proud. Looking back, I wish that I had spent more time learning about wrestling before coming to the tournament. I felt unprepared when it came to what types of injuries and conditions to expect, and I wish I would have understood what to get ready to see. I couldn’t help but jump a little as their little necks were moved around, but I soon understood that they practice flexibility and neck strength for a reason. In the future, I will definitely take more time to learn about the sport that I’m covering before arriving. I feel that having the opportunity to practice as a clinician with less supervision truly gave me a confidence boost right when I needed it. We will be hearing very soon about the results of our BOC, and this experience has shown me that if those results are in my favor, I am competent to professionally practice what I have studied for the past four years.
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April 2019
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