If you’re a new therapist, orthopedics is a great place to start. For the most part, bones are straightforward and predictable. Charting For this service, it is important to pay special attention to: Precautions Weightbearing status Hemoglobin and hematocrit levels Pain Treatment Give special attention to premedication for pain. Pain medications should be administered 30 min to 1 hour before therapy. Check orthostatic blood pressure readings, SPO2, and heart rate.
For those trying to break into acute care: Try to emphasize the skills you have that apply to acute care: the acuity of patients you’ve seen, lines you’ve managed, patient population, working with a medical team, any internships or volunteer experience you’ve had in acute care, and any continuing education courses you’ve taken. In many OT schools, they recommend you ask about mentoring opportunities to show your commitment to growth.
After applying for per diem hospital jobs for a solid year, I FINALLY got hired! This particular hospital was a county hospital in a neighborhood notorious for crime and violence. Let me mention, I grew up in a upper middle class, very safe neighborhood. As my coworker put it, me starting this job was like putting a puppy in an alligator den. The VERY FIRST patient I had on the very first day was a man who was shot multiple times in a liquor store.
In spring of 2023 I gave birth to my first child. It was a beautiful experience but also harrowing as I had a very dangerous form of preclampsia and needed an emergent induction. I was at risk of organ damage, seizures and hemorrhage. Working at the hospital, you would think I would be comfortable being admitted as I knew the general ebb and flow, knew some medical terminology and medicines, walked a similar hallway 5 days a week.
The hospital employs different ways of calling for help to deploy qualified personnel in a timely manner. If you encounter an issue during your session, here are different ways of calling for help: Patient Call Light (Non-urgent help) Can be used to call nursing assistants to assist with pericare or linen changes, to call nursing to request pain medicine or to disconnect IVs to make line management easier. Help may not come right away.
Here are some common discharge options across hospitals from most intensive therapy to least. Acute rehab A rehab setting delivering short term aggressive therapy with the goal of the patient returning home afterward. The patient needs to be able to tolerate 3 hours of therapy a day, 5 days a week for about 2 weeks. The patient needs to be motivated, have enough stamina to participate, and have a potential to improve rapidly.
*All opinions here are my own. This section is merely what I have experienced working in each setting. Community hospital These hospitals are smaller with many patients being residents of the area. They have less resources than large hospitals so they transfer out higher acuity patients that cannot be managed with the expertise and equipment they have available. In my experience, working here is like living in a small town instead of a city.
As you gain more experience in the hospital, you will find your own style and methods of performing evaluations and treatments. Here is a sample that can be revised and tweaked as you gain experience: Introduce yourself at the start of the session and give a brief explanation of your role in the hospital. Perform the interview to find out the prior level of function and home environmental setup. Try to talk directly to the patient, not the caregiver.
I honestly don’t remember the primary diagnosis of this patient, just that her poop was runny and black like some sort of smelly, cursed volcano lava. The skin on her butt started becoming raw from all the wiping and bedding changes so the docs decided to put in a rectal tube. In case you wanted to imagine it, a rectal tube is basically a ball connected to a tube connected to a bag.
code brown “Code Brown”: the one code in the hospital that you won’t find typed within the code list on a hospital badge or in a training manual. It is a code that you learn by experience unfortunately. It doesn’t denote just any sort of poop either, only the biggest, wettest and messiest ones. It’s a poop deserving of a code. I have wiped many butts in my years of service, but one particular instance comes to mind.
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