My internship gets better over time. It also gets a little more complicated.
Now that I've been here longer, I can see all different types of patients progress throughout their healing process. I can assess what condition they were in when they arrived for their first visit, and then see how their treatment has effected them.
I've also learned that surgery creates a lot of unintentional side effects, mostly because of how invasive it is. For example, the surgeon can fix the broken part, but doing that can create stiffness, loss of feeling, incomplete healing, etc. In general, it's difficult to get the patient back to where they were before the injury occurred. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of procedures that have been very successful, but I had never realize why invasive treatments have such a negative connotation. In my experience, the patient may not be 100% back to normal, but since surgery has fixed the majority of the problem, they don't even notice what they're lacking because the main problems cease to exist.
Surgery is also very permanent. I knew that before, but compared to other methods, you're basically letting a doctor determine your future quality of life. In other methods, such as a brace or physical therapy, if you don't like the result, you can simply take off the brace or change to different exercises. In surgery, however, once the screw or plate or anchor is in, your outcome is basically set in stone. This is probably why so much schooling is required to be allowed to operate on others...
In other news, my LINK project has changed again. The last idea that Dr. Butzen has in mind for me would not have been very easy for me to complete. Since I'm not a doctor, nor have I spent much time with doctors, I wasn't sure how I could create a packet from a doctors perspective. The next idea in the works is to update Animas Orthopedic Associates' website. It is outdated, hard to navigate, hard to revise, and not very aesthetically pleasing. It does what it's supposed to do, but I think I can improve it immensely. A few kinks still need to be worked out, but I'm excited for this project and hope it will work out.
Now that I've been here longer, I can see all different types of patients progress throughout their healing process. I can assess what condition they were in when they arrived for their first visit, and then see how their treatment has effected them.
I've also learned that surgery creates a lot of unintentional side effects, mostly because of how invasive it is. For example, the surgeon can fix the broken part, but doing that can create stiffness, loss of feeling, incomplete healing, etc. In general, it's difficult to get the patient back to where they were before the injury occurred. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of procedures that have been very successful, but I had never realize why invasive treatments have such a negative connotation. In my experience, the patient may not be 100% back to normal, but since surgery has fixed the majority of the problem, they don't even notice what they're lacking because the main problems cease to exist.
Surgery is also very permanent. I knew that before, but compared to other methods, you're basically letting a doctor determine your future quality of life. In other methods, such as a brace or physical therapy, if you don't like the result, you can simply take off the brace or change to different exercises. In surgery, however, once the screw or plate or anchor is in, your outcome is basically set in stone. This is probably why so much schooling is required to be allowed to operate on others...
In other news, my LINK project has changed again. The last idea that Dr. Butzen has in mind for me would not have been very easy for me to complete. Since I'm not a doctor, nor have I spent much time with doctors, I wasn't sure how I could create a packet from a doctors perspective. The next idea in the works is to update Animas Orthopedic Associates' website. It is outdated, hard to navigate, hard to revise, and not very aesthetically pleasing. It does what it's supposed to do, but I think I can improve it immensely. A few kinks still need to be worked out, but I'm excited for this project and hope it will work out.