Barrett Dorko
27-08-2008, 02:15 PM
It’s been a quiet week in Cuyahoga Falls…
I’ve just a few weeks to go before I leave the job that has filled the summer months here in Ohio. The rehab staff is aware of my impending departure and more than once I’ve heard the supervisor ask, “What are we going to do when you’re gone?” I want to answer, “You’ll just go on seeing actual patients and doing real therapy,” but I don’t usually say anything. That’s just a phrase that came to me one day in June as I sat next to an elderly woman, lifting my knees repeatedly as I wished her to do.
Now, I’m not certain that this movement of the leg is actually worth much or that it translates to real improvement on the patient’s part, but it’s what I’ve seen my colleagues do and it fulfills the patient’s expectations of therapy. We all know the drill, and I try to do my part.
When I leave, a physical therapist assistant will be added to the staff and things will return to normal. I have the sense that there will be a lot more knee lifting.
But yesterday I saw a vital and active man in his eighties for the first time. He has a primary complaint of shoulder pain and markedly restricted mobility that came on insidiously a few weeks ago and he was hopeful that therapy would provide some relief. He left with a new understanding of his problem and its solution, an exercise that made sense and helped immediately and a loud “thank you” for what I had done, though I hadn’t really “done” much of anything.
There wasn’t any “real” therapy there when seen from a traditional perspective and I see no reason to believe that any of the therapists working here beyond my leaving will employ any of this thinking or method. What will they do when I’m gone? The answer is obvious.
I composed this addition to “The News…” as I drove home last night and this morning my son Alex sent me a poem from his tiny quarters deep in Kirkuk. It’s titled A Dozen Finches and written by Kay Ryan.
A dozen Finches
in unison
dip down,
tilt their wings,
swing up
sink to their
chosen inch
of branch, and
settle, neat
and silent in
their arrival,
intent upon
that courtesy
that marks the
nearly weightless,
careful with
the imposition
of their half ounces
This is what the clinic I currently work in will miss – my courtesy, the nearly weightless nature of my method, and the perfectly natural response of the patient in pain.
It’s available, but, in the end, most don’t consider it “real” therapy.
I’ll fly away, and land somewhere else.
I’ve just a few weeks to go before I leave the job that has filled the summer months here in Ohio. The rehab staff is aware of my impending departure and more than once I’ve heard the supervisor ask, “What are we going to do when you’re gone?” I want to answer, “You’ll just go on seeing actual patients and doing real therapy,” but I don’t usually say anything. That’s just a phrase that came to me one day in June as I sat next to an elderly woman, lifting my knees repeatedly as I wished her to do.
Now, I’m not certain that this movement of the leg is actually worth much or that it translates to real improvement on the patient’s part, but it’s what I’ve seen my colleagues do and it fulfills the patient’s expectations of therapy. We all know the drill, and I try to do my part.
When I leave, a physical therapist assistant will be added to the staff and things will return to normal. I have the sense that there will be a lot more knee lifting.
But yesterday I saw a vital and active man in his eighties for the first time. He has a primary complaint of shoulder pain and markedly restricted mobility that came on insidiously a few weeks ago and he was hopeful that therapy would provide some relief. He left with a new understanding of his problem and its solution, an exercise that made sense and helped immediately and a loud “thank you” for what I had done, though I hadn’t really “done” much of anything.
There wasn’t any “real” therapy there when seen from a traditional perspective and I see no reason to believe that any of the therapists working here beyond my leaving will employ any of this thinking or method. What will they do when I’m gone? The answer is obvious.
I composed this addition to “The News…” as I drove home last night and this morning my son Alex sent me a poem from his tiny quarters deep in Kirkuk. It’s titled A Dozen Finches and written by Kay Ryan.
A dozen Finches
in unison
dip down,
tilt their wings,
swing up
sink to their
chosen inch
of branch, and
settle, neat
and silent in
their arrival,
intent upon
that courtesy
that marks the
nearly weightless,
careful with
the imposition
of their half ounces
This is what the clinic I currently work in will miss – my courtesy, the nearly weightless nature of my method, and the perfectly natural response of the patient in pain.
It’s available, but, in the end, most don’t consider it “real” therapy.
I’ll fly away, and land somewhere else.