The Joys of being a new grad

Hello Everyone,

If you know me at all, you know how little confidence I have in who I am as a therapist.

But something happened today that made me laugh.

I went to the waiting room this morning, called my first patient of the morning back. It was a new patient, but this elderly grandma jumped right up when I called her name and looked very enthusiastic to get started. Once I sat her down to do an eval, she began talking about another therapist at the clinic that had been treating her neck (even though I had a referral from the doctor for back pain). She was the kind of sweet grandma that liked to talk about everything, and pretty soon I realized it was going to be difficult to get the information I needed. It took me several tries but I finally got her to talk a little bit about her back. As she started talking about it I began realizing it didn't match the information I had been given in the chart....like at all.

"tell me a little bit about the pain in your back...."

"my back? oh its fine. feels like .... well not too bad."

hmmm....thats weird because in the chart it said she was complaining of 8/10 pain with severe bilateral numbness and tingling.

"How about the numbness in your legs?"

"its not too bad."

ummm...okay......

"How would you rate your pain?"

"pretty good I think."

ok. something is wrong.

"what is your last name?"

Patient answer...... not the name on my chart.

Uh oh.

So sweet little grandma wasn't a new patient at all. She must have been so excited about getting her neck worked on that day that she didn't realize when I called out a name, that it wasn't her name. And she didn't realize that I wasn't her therapist either.

Now its been a good 15 minutes,I have to go back to the lobby, and call out the name again.

When I finally find the right patient I ask her,

"did you hear me call your name before?"

"yes i did. but i thought that lady had the same name."

so thats how my morning began.

needless to say the rest of the therapists thought it was pretty amusing.

some day I'll laugh too.

Hope you are all well,

Katy

New Year, New Adventures

Hello to all my faithful followers!

"In the silence You are speaking, in the stillness you are moving, in the Chaos You are still here, here with me."

Well a lot has changed since my days of running around in Arizona.

Within the last month I passed my board exams, graduated (yup its true, ya'll have to call me "Dr" now), moved out to west LA, and started my residency and a brand new job.

New town, new job, new life.

Needless to say life has been a tid-bit nuts for me lately, but its all very exciting. I thought I could continue to document my adventures throughout this year to see what God does and the challenges that lie ahead. After 2 weeks as a resident, I've already been met with struggles and challenges that have pushed me to question who I am as a therapist, and who I would like to be.

I am not going to lie, I thought it was going to be quite an adjustment going from working with professional baseball players to working for Kaiser in South Bay. However, it hasn't been too much of a change. No matter where I am, or the people I'm working with, my job allows me to help better feel better and get back to their lives.

Today I taught an 85 year old woman with a spinal fracture how to cough without getting excruciating pain. She was incredibly grateful and I'll I did was show her one little thing. Then I got to hang out with a sweet little 7 year old who was in a car accident with his father (who is a surgeon) and made an experience that was so scary for this little boy turn into a fun afternoon (ya thats right, I can be fun.) Then I had a 35 year old marathoner that was so grateful for my ability to give her some real answers to why she can't run beyond 6 miles without getting pain.

My life is a total new adventure. Every patient I see is new to me. There is no routine, there is no "been there, done that." I am a raw, unpolished, new grad with a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and motivation to really be the best therapist I can for these patients, while trying to glorify God in all that I do.

The Adventure begins.