Whilst on my rural prac at a fairly large hospital, I developed a character clash with one of the physios in the department who happened to be fairly senior. I am sure everyone has found out that rural pracs are very hectic, and you are thrown in there and just have to get on with it straight away. My orientation to the hospital was good, but obviously you cant get through every small detail of the wards and the physio department in a few hours, and most supervisors and physios are aware of this and expect you to forget things and ask a hundred questions. I was responsible for being in the hydro pool twice a week, and that was all I was told. One of the days of the week, I was in the pool with the physiotherapist I clashed with. She was a lot older than all the other physios in the department, and was not the most welcoming person I have ever met. So on my first day of hydro, I was not quite sure of where all the patients paperwork was, or who was responsible for getting all the paperwork out etc. Unfortunately I was about to discover that that was my job, I just had not been told it on orientation. Also, on this day, for some reason the PTA had overbooked the pool. The physio then went on to give me a lecture on my responsibilities and to basically blame me for the mess. I tried to explain that I really had no idea that that was my job, but she would not hear of it. It was very embarrassing because all the patients were already in the pool. Anyway eventually we got on with the class and I was moving around the pool amongst the patients, and stopped for a second to stretch one of my hamstrings. At that moment she turned around and said that the pool time was for the patients to exercise, not me. I felt yet again so embarrassed and felt that she was now just targeting me for no reason. I felt that she thought I was incompetent, even though I had had good feedback from all the other physios, and I felt she was only seeing bad in me and not anything good that I did.
After the session I was very upset and spoke to my supervisor who was a fairly new grad. She told me that this physio was generally rude to everyone, and that I shouldn’t take it personally. She said that it didn’t really matter in the end what this physio thought of me because she wasn’t assessing me, but I still felt like I wanted her approval. In the end I realised that it wasn’t a personal thing, after I observed her being rude to a number of people that day. But I realised that as a student, it is probably better to just find out as much as you can from your supervisor about what your responsibilities are if you are required to take classes or hydro, so that you are always well prepared. In future I will make a point of finding these things out and clarifying what I am meant to do, so that if I am accused of not doing something I can support myself and say that I had asked but was told that I was responsible for the said job.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This incident must have been really unnerving especially as you not only have to adapt to the diversity of rural placement but deal with personality clashes. Personally, I have had difficulty on placements with other physios and I put it down to the fact that the idea of student-teacher relationship is confronting for some supervisors to adapt to, and given that we're close to graduating there is a level of expectation above and beyond what we are explained or orientated to. I think that if on the same ward as a recently employed new-graduate the working dynamics would be slightly different and there is the ability to be more assertive without being so worried about being 'arrogant' or pissing off people that could potentially be grading/assessing you. It's a delicate line as a student that you don't want to cross over and we often take the fault onboard ourselves despite it not necessarily being the appropriate thing to do.
I guess these situations can sometimes be a good thing to experience. When we are out in the real 'work force' we will probably not get along with everyone working along side us. Having the oppurtunity to deal with these situations now will hopefully help us be more prepared for them in the future.
Post a Comment