Initial Entry - Rotation 2: Kalgoorlie

For a while I have been looking forward to completing a rural placement and being in Kalgoorlie where I have lived before makes the transition all the more easier. I’ve always enjoyed getting away from Perth and getting a chance to take a break and in this case more time to spend studying & revising (since there isn’t a whole lot else to do in this town). From a clinical point of view I am excited about the chance to experience a musculoskeletal private practice setting and utilise the knowledge I have been accumulating since first year. For many years I have been treated in private practice settings so on this occasion I think I’ll find it interesting & rewarding to experience the profession from the other side of the plinth.

The catch is that from the other side of the plinth you are running the show. For all the other placements I’ve been on there has been patient notes, some more detailed than others, that essentially provided me with a picture of each patient before setting eyes on them. In private practice this luxury is not always available and this does provide a bit of uncertainty about what to expect with each patient. Even though I am still a student I would like to be at a level where I can efficiently & effectively diagnose patients by the end of the 5 week period which at the moment seems slightly daunting.

Another reason why I selected Kalgoorlie private practice as a placement is that I had heard good reports from other physiotherapy students that it was a great learning experience. This has been combined with reports of my supervisor being a hard task master & very challenging. Since I am very interested in private practice physiotherapy I hope that I am able to benefit as well as other people have in the past and learn a lot about physiotherapy in this environment.

Information I have gathered concerning my role has me observing for a couple of days then gradually increasing my involvement in the process to the point of treating the patients independently with consultation from the head physiotherapist. I believe this would involve me carrying out a subjective assessment, objective assessment and then treatment with input from my supervisor after each part. At this stage having my supervisor oversea all my actions would be beneficial but I hope to be able to accurately run a session with minimal supervisor input and importantly gain the trust of the patients since I see this as a potential major hurdle to furthering my involvement with patients. I hope to be able to develop a strong rapport with the patients that then transfers to them having confidence in my ability to treat them effectively.

There will also be a component of offsite work with visiting minesites to assess and treat people in their work environment. I am not sure what to expect from this at this stage but it will be an interesting experience to assess people at work and analyse first hand if factors at their workplace are impacting upon their health status as opposed to relying on second hand information.

Although daunting at this stage I am looking forward to experiencing a private practice environment and the broad range of conditions that should present themselves with being a first contact health practice. I hope to develop my professional and clinical skills to graduate levels and also enjoy the experience of potentially being the only health profession to treat and help individuals.