I started out the morning with a traffic-filled 45 minute drive to the Wake Ortho office in North Raleigh. Once I got there, I was introduced to many of the doctors and PA’s and immediately formed a strong relationship with them. In the morning I shadowed PA Sean Russell who does arthroscopic injections into the body to ease the pain caused by arthritis. Coming off a holiday weekend, it wasn’t busy in the office so we only got to see three patients in the morning. However, later that afternoon, I was able to shadow Dr. Chappel who is a orthopedic surgeon who specializes in the knee and hip. While working with him, we saw nearly 20 patients in the span of 3 hours. He had a patient scheduled every 15 minutes! The most exciting part about this job is that I got to meet a new person with a different history every 15 minutes. Every patient had a different problem and a different reason to be in that office. I found that really interesting because you were always dealing with something new and exciting. We had some patients were more understanding while others were paranoid or worried about their injury. We had a few patients come in with a tear in the shoulder and others come in with extreme knee pain. I looked at xrays for one woman who had fallen and torn her rotator cuff after her dog went after a squirrel. I was also able to meet a woman who had just had a stroke and came into the office unable to move the entire left side of her body. Seeing all these patients on the first day was a really cool experience and I can’t wait to continue working with all these amazing doctors in the days to come.
-Koen
