It's All in the Little Things

Luckily the facility was only 20 minutes from my house, so commuting wasn’t a big hassle. I arrived at 8:30 a.m. ready to go, but still feeling nervous and unsure as to what I needed to do. I waited by the little office located in the rehabilitation room where the employees got their papers and assignments for the day. I noticed that the employees seemed to just arrive when they wanted to, being that some said they’d gotten there earlier, while a few came later during the day. Apparently they all needed to see each of their patients for a specified amount of time each day; therefore, if they started earlier, they could be done earlier. Athina came and we started to see her patients. Athina made sure to ask each patient if I was ok to observe, an important aspect in protecting an individual’s privacy and maintaining trust. No one said no today; so far so good. The first person we saw was a women that had difficulty getting out of bed, and standing by herself. I wasn’t allowed to assist any of these patients, so Athina, by herself, helped sit this women up in bed. I learned very quickly that to be successful in this field you must be able to notice little details. With this women, the bed needed to be raised up so that the transition from the bed to the walker would be easier. This is not the case for all patients. Athina proceeded to help this women dress and was very considerate of her needs. She had an oxygen cord which needed to be attached to an oxygen tank on the back of the wheelchair. Once that was set up, Athina gave me the job of following behind this women with the wheelchair as she used the walker. I made sure the oxygen cord didn’t get caught anywhere and was close to this women. We saw other patients today, but the biggest things I learned was the importance of paying attention to details and respecting the patients.