Well considering my first few days of this placement were so bad I feel like I ended the week/two weeks on a high and I am enjoying it again. I think Wednesday was the turning point although I'm not quite sure why. I had a bit of a chat with some of the other students I'm on placement with and realised I'm not alone so that seemed to lift the pressure. Suddenly I didn't feel like such a klutz who couldn't seem to do anything right. I made the decision to try and let certain events that had affected my confidence to wash over me and start afresh.
A little bit of encouragement goes a long way and I found that with a little bit of help, support and encouragement from the radiographers I feel more like my old self and a million times better than I did on Monday. I actually feel like I made a fair bit of progress this week after all and there was me thinking I was regressing! I am very tired and I was grateful to see 5 p.m but all things considered I have enjoyed being back on placement.
I've been on portables this week and sod's law there haven't really been many at all. I only went on a handful, so knowing the opportunities were scarce I made the most of it and asked the radiographer if I could more hands on practice which they didn't mind at all and they were happy for me to do the work and just supervise and guide me. In a way I regretted not asking to do more on previous occasions when I've been on portables because they were missed opportunities to get valuable experience looking back on it but at the same time I don't think I felt ready to if that makes sense? If there is one piece of advice I can give to anybody on placement it is to make your time there count. Get involved in everything and anything that you can. Don't stand back and shy away because you will miss out on things.
I can be prone to shying away from things myself, so on placement I always make sure to push myself to have a go and do things that are out of my comfort zone every day and it always pays off. Yes it is scary (especially theatre) and it can be exhausting, but the rewards are there so I do it and 9 times out of 10 there is nothing to worry about. The radiographers are there to help you whenever you're uncertain or get stuck and most are willing to do whatever they can to get you through it. You only have to ask.
So this week I don't think there is much to tell. I've not really done anything out of the ordinary. I've been doing more complex x-rays this week and felt a bit like I was thrown in the deep end at first but I can see I've improved a lot in a short space of time.
In the first year it tended to be that we'd do mostly extremities and chest x-rays before working up to knee and elbow x-rays. Then towards the end of the year we'd get to do things like pelvis and shoulder exams and depending on how you were progressing you may also get to do x-rays of the spine and so on but it all tended to be on easy walking patients who were co-operative and not particularly challenging in any way.
Now, in the second year we are doing all of those examinations and more and the patients are more complex. There may be other needs and considerations that you need to take into account as they may not be ambulant or may be much harder to position for an x-ray for a various reasons. The radiographers will obviously help you out but the difference is you are expected to think for yourself a lot more and problem solve I suppose by applying your knowledge and experience from the first year to come up with a solution and take a good x-ray. It is quite a good feeling when you manage to do something ordeal with a patient you thought you'd never be able to, or when you are struggling with a projection and then something clicks and it all falls into place. You learn so much on placement. Some harsh lessons sometimes yes, but I am a firm believer that you learn from your mistakes and nobody is perfect are they?? Anyway, I'm starting to ramble. Again, the point I was trying to make is you just have to get involved as much as you can and make the most of the little time you have on placement to get the most of it.
I feel like I've not had much time to do anything outside of placement really as I've been so tired. Other than setting myself deadlines and targets for coursework and looking up pathologies and other bits and bobs that have come up on placement I haven't done much uni work, even though there is plenty to be getting on with. At least I've decided on what I'm going to do for one of my assignments which is a case study so this weekend I will either be continuing to do research for that like I have been all week or getting at least one of these presentations up on PowerPoint. (Okay so maybe I have got more done than I'd realised :-))
Next week I'm being rotated around the department starting with MRI on Monday so I'll also have to do some prep for that which will be quite interesting. If anyone is reading I hope you're finding some of this info helpful. I've said it before but I'm not too sure what sort of things people want to know about. I'm kind of using this blog to vent (as if you hadn't noticed ha!) and reflect.
Time for me to hit the sack. Have a good weekend x
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