JLN Year 2:
Engaged Learning
Zeena Frageman
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What was my Engaged Learning Experience?
What was my Engaged Learning Experience?
I worked at a ATI Physical Therapy Clinic as a Operations support specialist, My role as a Operations support specialist, or in other words, a PT aid, were to help keep the clinic cleaned and stocked, scheduling patients, checking patients in, answering phones, assisting patients with exercises, and helping patients with paperwork.
Since I only had to get 50 hours, I mostly helped patients with their exercises. I chose to do this for my ELE because I am going to school to be a physical therapist. I wanted to make sure that this is something that I want to for the rest of my life.
Resistance Bands
Resistance Bands
The artifact I chose were resistance bands. These were used very often in the clinic while patients were doing exercises. These helped patients build strength back in the areas they were working on. There were different colored bands, which represented the amount of resistance each band had ranging from light to heavy.
Prior Experience
Most of the classes I am taking are things that I will be using in my future career as a physical therapist. Anatomy and health and rehabilitation have been a massive help when shadowing at the clinic.
As a physical therapist, I am going to have to diagnose and examine injuries, and without learning about the different parts of our body, I won’t know what to look for. The classes I am taking also helped me to actually understand what was going on while I was job shadowing at the physical therapy clinic.
The PT that I was working with the most has done a lot of evaluations on patients to figure out the root of their pain or injury. Taking anatomy on top of this job shadowing, made it easier to understand what was going on in class and in the clinic.
My engaged learning experience has prepared me for what to expect as a physical therapist. I got to see firsthand what a workday looks like for a physical therapist and what exactly they do while working. I also took/have been taking a few other health related classes that helped me to determine what the specific injury could be affecting.
Community Connections
The community I served ranged from many different ages. I worked with people ages 16-65+, so adolescence to seniors. The main role I had was to oversee exercises. I assisted patients with exercises and explained how to do them. A lot of the exercises they did were repetitive, or exercises they did for a couple weeks straight before getting new ones. Patients for the most part knew what they were doing, but I was there to remind them what the order of their exercises were in. I then made sure they were doing the correct exercises at home, and of not, reminded them how to do it. I also assisted with putting the correct amount of weights on certain machines and helped set timers for their exercises so they were consistent with their times.
New Skills/Lessons
Some new skills that I have gained while working in the clinic were how to work with a patient, communication skills, and how to test the waters without overdoing it. I got to see how each injury affects each person. That helped me to realize that you to need to have a lot of patience when working in this field. Not every patient can work as fast as another, so testing the waters allows for us to figure out what pace we need to go at.
I learned that the community I served were all there to get better and were willing to work with us to get where they needed to be. Working at this clinic taught me a lot about the different types of patients we were dealing with as well. While everyone was there to get better, we had some patients that didn’t like how we went about getting them better. That caused us to change treatment plans and accommodate their wants and needs.
Here is a physical therapist and patient using a hand exercise ball to build strength in her hands. It helps retrain the muscles and works on strengthening the fingers.
Impact
The impact that my ELE had on me was that I now know this is the field I want to go into. I have been a little hesitant on whether or not I want to go into this field but getting to work in a clinic has showed me that this is what I want to do.
I’ve always wanted to have a part in helping people with their health and getting to work at the clinic allowed me to do so. Seeing patients “graduate” from the clinic was very rewarding and it’s something that I want to be a part of for my future career. For the little time that I got to be there with the patients, I think that I left a small impact on them. I was able to assist them on their exercises and guide them on how to do them which lead to them getting better in the end.
This experience has taught me a lot about the field that I am going into. Overall, I feel that this experience has left such a big impact on me.
Career Connections
Career Connections
After completing my 50 hours for my ELE, I will use this as encouragement to finish school. I want to work in a clinic as a PT and in order to do that, I need to finish school and get my doctorate. In order to get my doctorate, I need to go to PT school and I can use this experience as a way to get in. I can also use the PTs that I worked with as a possible reference when applying for future jobs. I also talked to the PTs about continuing my position as an OSS at their clinic because I enjoyed my time there.
While working there, I didn’t work with a specific age group. The ages ranged from 16-65+ which was nice because it gave me the opportunity to work with people of all ages which helps me figure out what age group I want to work with in the future.
My biggest takeaway…
Overall, my experience was amazing and I am so happy that I got the opportunity to do this. As I stated before, I was hesitant about my career choice, but getting to be in the clinic with the physical therapists really helped me to realize this is what I want to do. Getting to see patients get better was very rewarding.
Being in the clinic and working with the PTs and patients has showed me how it’ll be when I am doing this professionally. If it weren’t for this assignment and having to get 50 hours of job shadowing, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity and I am grateful that I did. I may even work in an ATI clinic when I am completely done with school!
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