My First Week on Placement in Women’s Health
Hi, I am Amalia and I am in my 1st year, studying MSc Physiotherapy at the University of Plymouth. I am currently on my first placement, in Women’s Health. If you’d like to follow my journey a bit more, take a look at @thephysiojourney on Instagram.
So, I thought I might come on here and share my first week on a Women’s Health placement, as a Physiotherapy student…
Before starting I made sure I packed my bag, probably with a bit too much stuff, but better to have too much than too little I thought…
I made sure to have my name badge, pen, notepad, lunch, and water…as well as my uniform…which I changed into when I got in. I made sure to email my educator before starting, to not only introduce myself, but to also check there wasn’t anything else I needed to do before starting and ask some questions such as “Where do I change when I get in?” “Where do I meet/head to on my first day?”
After all of that…my first day came around very quickly. When I arrived, I waited at reception and met my educator. After a bit of an introduction and small tour of the area, we began clinic! I didn’t expect to be able to sit in the clinics on my first day, but I absolutely loved it and was very grateful to have the opportunity so soon. My educator has assigned time each day to deliver some 1-1 teaching, so before our first patient we began looking at caesareans. After that we went into seeing patients in clinic. Here we saw patients for any problems regarding women’s health as well as gynaecological reasons, for both men and women. This took us up until lunchtime. After some lunch, we just had one more patient to see and then it was time for me to familiarise myself with the trust’s policies and IT system.
The rest of the week followed a similar setting to my first day, although the afternoon IT familiarisation time soon turned into some evidence-based practice work and learning! Each day my educator would give me something to research or ask me to look at the next day’s patients to familiarise myself and read up about what each person was coming in with.
On the Thursday and Friday this week we got to go up to the gynaecology and the maternity ward, to check on some patients after their operations!! That was another really great experience, it was great to see patients in another setting and for different reasons…as well as giving me the opportunity to meet some more of the staff members.
Typical day:
8-9:30am: Arrival and 1-1 teaching, as well as prep for the morning patients. Or, if we have patients to see on the ward, we will also use this time to go and see them
9:30-12:15pm - Clinic
12:15-12:30 - Morning debrief
12:30-13:15- Lunch
13:15-16:30 - Clinic or time for MDT shadowing or research
16:30- Home time :)
So, I won’t keep this too long…but I have absolutely loved my first week and cannot wait to get going again on Monday. I thought I would also share some tips, that I learnt, for your first week….
Get involved straight away. Have the confidence to say ‘yes’ to any opportunity and know that you are ready…it is easy to forget the amount of time you will have spent in lectures and practical’s before, and it will be easy to think you don’t know enough…but I promise you, you know more than you think!!! Also, in your first week it is very observation based, so it is just a perfect opportunity to familiarise yourself with the area and meet some of the team…as well as learning lots too!
Take a pen and note pad with you straight away - I was a bit nervous at first to take one…but there are always so many opportunities to take notes and jot things down to look at later…I am only 4 days in, and I have already filled out about 10 pages of notes!!
Take your water with you - this is another thing I was nervous to bring. But sometimes you may not know when you’re coming back to the office and may just want a quick drink. You can always store it away somewhere nearby if you are doing the ward rounds or off somewhere different.
Post-it notes!! If you can’t carry your notepad with you, carrying some post-it notes can be a super handy way to jot some quick notes and reminders for yourself when you’re on the go.
And lastly, but by no means least, ENJOY IT !!!