Acute Care Reflection Paper

Words: 630
Pages: 3

In PT 715, we are provided with the skills needed for us to use in the acute care setting. As someone who has a strong interest in helping people in this setting, I gravitated towards learning any and all skills I could in class or lab. However, there was a disconnection between how I was going to apply these skills in the future because I was practicing solely on my peers, family members, and friends—not actual patients who were living with pulmonary or cardiac conditions such as COPD and Congestive Heart Failure. This disconnection between what I was learning and how well I felt I could successfully provide care for my future patients had begun to take a toll on my confidence as a future clinician. Therefore, the simulation served as a way for me to attempt to gauge how I felt my progression as a student measured up to what we had learned thus far in the curriculum and determine what I needed to work on in order to progress further as a student physical therapist.
Prior to actually entering the simulation lab, I felt prepared for what we were going to experience. I
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I realized I knew more than I gave myself credit for and that with time and confidence I will be able to treat a patient with ease. Although I felt panicked at times, I feel more prepared for “real-life” acute care scenarios in that my observation skills have been a major key in what I do with each patient. It is still hard to tell how I will fare in the clinic, I believe with time it will get better and a lot easier to problem solve. In the future, it would be beneficial to include other students in the health sciences department to participate. We, as future healthcare providers, will encounter nurses, OTs, speech therapists, and physicians in regards to the care of patients. Having one student of each profession together for a simulation experience will provide a perspective that I, as a student physical therapist, may not have thought about