The first value that I would like to discuss is accountability. For this clinical rotation, I was exposed to a completely different thought process / system for critical thinking than what I experienced in school. My CI has studied and obtained her FAAOMPT from Manual Therapy Institute, which takes a lot of it’s foundational information from Shirley Sahrmann. Under Dr. Sahrmann, there is a whole series of physical therapy diagnoses based on the patients presentation. Some examples of these diagnoses include extension rotation syndrome of the lumbar spine, flexion syndrome of the cervical spine, and supination syndrome of the foot/ankle. I had never heard of this physical therapist and was not aware of this classification system, so in the beginning of this internship, I found it difficult to understand the connections that Rachel made between presentation and symptomology.

In order to bridge the gap between what information I already had learned and that which Rachel had learned and utilized on a daily basis, I asked Rachel if I could borrow the Sahrmann textbooks that she owned and kept present in the clinic. Over the course of this internship, I did eventually purchase the second edition of the Sahrmann movement analysis book, and will be purchasing the third edition when it is reprinted/updated later this year or early next year. I found the descriptions of possible patient presentations, common compensatory patterns, and reasoning for why they were compensation in that way very helpful and intuitive, after a time.

In the future, I believe that I will continue to utilize these new sources of information as appropriate to assist me with identifying impairments and developing plans of care. I am glad that I took the time to utilize these textbooks while they were made available to me, and I feel that I can attribute a large portion of the improvement in my critical thinking skills to a seeking out this extra information, which facilitated my ability to better understand the mindset of my CI.

In addition, I was able to use this internship to become more comfortable communicating with other members of the healthcare team, including physicians, specialists, and other physical therapists. Not only did I use these opportunities to improve my professional communication skills, but it also was helpful for helping me pare down the information I do give in these conversations to only the most important. I am very lucky to have worked with physicians who highly value the input of physical therapists, and this experience developed my confidence with making direct recommendations about appropriate next steps for a patient.