On the eve of my first clinical placement for the year, I feel I am much more nervous than I have been for previous placements. There is definitely still that sense of excitement at knowing I will be able to put the past 3 years worth of study into practice, but at the moment I am just fearful that I will not demonstrate my capabilities to their full potential because of the fact that I will be trying to draw on 3 years worth of material and I’m just praying there isn’t too many gaps in between.
My main concern is the new heightened perception of me as a 4th year student. In previous years there have always been comments such as “don’t worry, that’s 4th year stuff...” etc, that have been mentioned, along with others about 4th years being like new grad students. My problem is that I don’t feel like I have the capabilities of a new grad student and so I don’t want to be treated like one, certainly not in the first few weeks anyway. But I just don’t know if my supervisor will feel this way too, so this is why I’m concerned.
Another problem I have is that I would classify myself as a ‘slow starter,’ someone who prefers to ease into proceedings by listening, observing and asking questions before finally doing and performing. I don’t expect this will be taken into account on this placement, because from chats with other students it seems my supervisor likes to get students treating patients immediately on the first days on placement, which is something that I will just have to deal with as best as I can tomorrow morning.
Despite this, I do feel that there will be some allowances early on in the placement for me as a student, however I don’t think these will last for long and I’ll probably be pretty independent by the second week. Which again is a daunting prospect, but I’m hoping I’ll have a good understanding of the environment by this time and will manage well.
One other concern that I do have about this placement is that the musculoskeletal system still seems like 4 very different entities when I think about it in my head, ie. LL, UL, Lsp and Csp. I hope that I can overcome this mindset as early as possible so that I can provide the best quality of care for my patients as I can, because I feel that to achieve this I need to be thinking of the person as a ‘whole’ rather than just parts. But I’m sure that after a few patients, a few positive tests and eventually positive treatment outcomes and discussions with my supervisor that the jig-saw will begin to take form and I’ll be on my way.
I think the main thing for me to remember while I am on this placement is my goal of learning and doing as much as possible while I am still being supervised and that there is no point in getting too worked up about the thought of a poor performance.
So for now, it’s an excited, but very very nervous goodnight before day 1 tomorrow!
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