Hi Everyone,
This experience happened to me on my last prac which was my rural. I was doing a community placement. During my second week, I was taking the No Falls group, along with the therapy assistant. We had a new patient, who had a long history of falls, and who's balance was severely decreased, and in hindsight was not really appropriate for that particular type of intervention. The therapy assistant and I were spending most of the time with this new pt, showing her what to do, however, one of the other paticipants of the class called me away, so I left the new pt with the therapy assistant, assuming that everything would be alright, as that particular activity was only standby assist. However, the new pt then had a fall. What I learned from this incident: Do not assume anything! The therapy assistant had a very confident personality, and I assumed that she knew more than she did. At the end of the day, we are the physios, we have the knowledge and no matter how confident (or bossy) a therapy assistant might be, we are the ones who have to take responsibility for all of our pts.
2 comments:
Falls are a horrible thing especially when the patient is injured. I hope that the patient was alright and it only served as a learning experience for all involved. Your instincts about the patient were correct which shows you knoe what level of safety they require. Well done even if things didnt go to plan!!! It should give you confidence in trusting your ability.
As to trusting a PTA, as physiotherapists we trust the ability of others. We assume that because we guard our patients carefully, that others will do so with the same vigilance.
When working with new staff, it is important to work out how they work, how confident they are in their ability and what sills they acually have. Actions speak much louder than words. So if they are talking their skills up, still be mindful that they might not perform to your expected standards.
I agree, never assume anything. On my gerontology patient I had one of my patients fall whilst she was trying to move with her WZF to the toilet and all attention turned to as I was her physio. Even though I let the nursing staff know that she was 1 x SB assist and wrote this on her mobility chart I assumed everything would be ok. Things tend to get lost in translation when the nursing staff change over and I think it's just as important then that you reinforce what level of assistance they require. Even though we are only students I still think we often can give a good assessment of funcitonal mobility as opposed to an experienced PTA, as we are skilled at observing and that seems to be most of what we have been doing for the last 4 years!
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