Having thought about a range of topics this week I thought I’d chat about a particular patient who had an interesting, and encouraging story to tell in which a physio played a significant role.
This patient is a 48 year old man who I went to see post an Ivor Lewis procedure (done for cancer of the oesophagus) to perform a respiratory assess and treat accordingly. The second day or so we of course went walking, and in one of his breaks we were chatting and it came out that the only reason his ca had been diagnosed was because of a PT. He had hurt his shoulder at work earlier in the year and was going to a PT for that, who then wanted to start him on a gym/strengthening programme. The PT was concerned about his recent weight loss (10kg in a year) and referred him back to the GP. The GP said “it’s all ok” and carry on with treatment….but the PT referred him onto another GP who did a endoscopy and…yes he had very advanced Ca.
I found this story amazing in that not only did the PT pick it up, but persevered with getting it checked out despite one dct giving the man the all clear, and now this guy will probably live longer etc because of that. I suppose for me it hugely reinforced all we were taught in Musculo regarding special questions, and gave me a bit of a fright in that literally someone’s life can be changed due to our vigilance as physios, even for the supposedly simple shoulder presentation that arrives in our clinic. So vigilance, and confidence in our own assessment of the individual is the thought for the week!!
2 comments:
Hey Claire,
That is very encouraging! i guess it just reinforces, as you said the importance of your own assessment. I know from being on the ward these last few weeks that i can get a bit bogged down in the medical diagnosis and problem list. One patient in particular that comes to mind was one with bilateral pleural effusions who the med staff had requested bidaily chest PT for. As far as i know i was not going to be able to specifically address this problem in my treatment, but whilst doing my assessment I did come up with a few PT problems which i could treat. I definitely agree with having confidence in your own assessment. Enjoy your last week!
Claire, thanks for the post, very useful story. Helpful in reminding us that we are a health care team not just a group under the Dr's. I have notived a couple of times on my placement already that the individual members of the health care team dont always gather all the information required about a particular patient. This can have varying results from slowing d/c to misdiagnosis. It really made me realise that we all (as members of a team)have a responsibility to ensure we do a thorough Ax and report unusual findings that have not been documented. People get busy and they miss things. I don't think we can assume the doctors or anyone else remember everything.
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