Shenandoah National Park

(Carol-Ann)
Summer session has officially ended, and I am starting my second year of school.  It's amazing how quickly this last year went by, and that's emphasized even more when I see the new group of first year students.  Hard to believe that I was in their place just a year ago - it's good to be on this side of all those anatomy courses.  This fall has several interesting classes in store for me.  We are starting to get into what we consider to be the "real" PT stuff - where we get to practice skills that we will eventually use in the clinic or hospital.  The two most interesting classes are MSK and Neuro Practice Management.  MSK means musculoskeletal, and in this class we learn all of the special tests and interventions that involve dealing with joint & muscle issues.  Starting at the neck, we will work our way down the body throughout the year.  Our Neuro course is similar, except that we are focusing on skills for treating patients who have neurological diseases, like Parkinson's and Multiple Sclerosis.  This is a very interesting and complicated course, because often times these patients have many different things going on, and it's important to be able to see the bigger picture and prioritize with the treatment plan.  These patients can also end up with MSK issues (and vice versa), so there is a lot of cross-over between the two courses.  It will be a challenging but fun semester!

Clinical placement - I received my clinical placement for my third year!  The way our program works, we have two years (including summers) of coursework at Duke, then we head out for 36 weeks of a full-time clinical rotation.  At the end of this summer, my class went through a selection process and we received our clinical placements for next year.  I will be headed down to Jacksonville FL to Brooks Rehabilitation Center, starting late July 2012.  The year will consist of three different rotations within their rehab facilities, and I will get a variety of different experiences.  Ethan and I are excited because we will be able to move down to Florida together, and we will be able to spend the entire year in one place rather than moving for each of my rotations.  We've also heard a lot about Florida ultimate frisbee and look forward to some fun games on the beach! (Did I mention we'll be right near the beach?  Taking reservations now for those who want to visit!)

Look for a post coming soon about our summer backpack trip to Shenandoah!