Author: koen_winemiller

Last day at WakeOrtho! I went into the office at Brier Creek to shadow the two PT’s that work there. Kimberly Potter and Luke Hudson have been working there for many years and are experts who doctors frequently refer their patients to. I was observing a patient who had a hamstring injury and had to have dry needling done on him so that he could be ready for football camp in the next 3 weeks. Dry needling is a technique used by Physical Therapists that involves the use of small needles that are inserted into different muscles to treat pain and movement impairments. I wrapped up my morning at PT and drove to the North Raleigh office to shadow the trauma and general Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Harris. It was a great last day and enjoyed these past two weeks with WakeOrtho!

 

Coming up on my final days shadowing at WakeOrtho! Today, I was able to shadow Dr. Luther at the Apex office who is a hand & elbow orthopedic surgeon. He works with all ages and has a passion for getting people with severe hand injuries back to doing daily activities again. Just this morning, we saw close to 20 patients all who had some type of pain with their hand. I saw him working with many kids who had broken fingers or fractured metacarpals. The most interesting patient I was able to see was a patient who had a GSW (gun shot wound) to the hand and had to have part of his middle finger amputated. He was cleaning his gun when he accidentally shot himself in the hand. The bones in his finger were so badly damaged that the best thing to do was cut off part of his finger to save the rest of it. Later on, Dr. Luther performed various types of small procedures and examinations such as steroid injections to relieve pain caused by arthritis. Looking forward to a great last day tomorrow!

This morning I was finally able to shadow an OT (occupational therapist) and see what she does on a daily basis. Her first patient was one she had seen for many years who had an accident with his hand back in 2014. He was a maintenance worker who had 1500 pounds of metal fall on his hand while on the job. This caused the need for his index finger to be amputated because of how damaged it was. He has since been working to rehabilitate it and regain his most of his strength back with his hand. In the span of 5 years, he has showed an extreme level of improvement and is continuing to get better as the years go by. This was very cool to see because I realized how dedicated one has to be if you ever want to make your injury better. Later on in the morning, a PA who works at WakeMed came in with a recent broken finger and was working to get that back to 100%. Thankfully, since she works in the medical field, she knows how to take care of it at home and is smart about rehabilitating it. Very cool day at the office!

A new week for Ortho! Today, I was fortunate to be at the Wake Orthopedics office in Cary– which is MUCH closer to my house than North Raleigh. In the morning, I was able to shadow a PA who specializes in Ultrasound steroid injections to relieve arthritis in the knee, ankle, shoulder, and hip. We dealt with quite a few patients today, all over the age of 40. They all had arthritis in their joints and came to the PA to relieve some of that pain. An ultrasound steroid injection will only temporally fix any pain caused by arthritis and is not permanent in any way. Too many of these injections in a short amount of time is not good for you and can have negative side effects. After a quick lunch break, I was back in the office but this time shadowing a Physical Therapist. She was working with an older woman who had her hip replaced 3 times and was working to fully mobilize it again. Her husband was there as well as he was working with the PT to try and fix his balance doing various activities. Looking forward to tomorrow with an OT!

Finally, the end of a long week of orthopedics. Today was a short and relaxing day but still very engaging for me. I was shadowing another PA at the Brier Creek office who dealt with smaller injuries and pain around the body. He unfortunately didn’t get many patients in the morning and said it was usually a lot busier. However, we did deal with a patient who was suffering severe pain in his left foot. He didn’t know why so the PA and I began to take X-rays for him. We soon figured out that he was had flat foot which could be an indication for why his feet might be causing him so much pain. We also did a post-op with a patient who had a broken finger and had just begun the rehabilitation process. We saw her x-ray and everything looked good so we let her know how much longer until it was fully recovered and then let her go. Other than that, it was a pretty chill day. I hung out with the PA and his assistant while they gossiped about TV shows and argued about whose dog is cuter. Great way to end the week!

Day 3 I was able to switch it up a bit. Instead of shadowing a doctor around all day, I was able to shadow a PA (Physicians Assistant) who dealt with all kinds of injuries. Rather than just seeing knee pain or shoulder pain like the other days, I was able to observe a various number of patients with injuries/pain all over their body. It was really cool to see all these patients and their different stories that they had to share. Later in the afternoon, I shadowed a PA’s assistant, who is in charge of things like getting the patients information written down and setting up x-rays for the patient. She was also in charge of taking off and putting on casts. I was able to observe her applying a leg cast on this tiny 8-year old boy and was fortunate enough to help with the process. The process took a lot longer than I expected. I was also really fortunate to observe a woman’s broken finger on an x-ray and help the PA decide whats best for the patient moving forward.

Day 2 was very similar to what I did yesterday. I was able to shadow Dr. Mark Wood for most of the day where we mainly looked at patients with knee injuries. Although Dr. Wood specializes in shoulders & knees, only knee patients came in yesterday. This was helpful because yesterday when I was with Dr. Chappell, we only got to see shoulder patients. There were many different types of cases that I saw yesterday. One woman came in from severely bruising her knee from tripping over a shopping cart. Another man came in for his post-op after they had to repair his quad muscle from falling while playing basketball. All these different types of cases gave me a better view for how easily injuries can happen and why you need to be careful while doing daily activities. Later in the afternoon, I was able to shadow the X-ray department. There, I was able to see how each x-ray is taken and the quick but important process of correctly lining the x-rays up and sending them to the doctor. I really enjoyed being behind the scenes and cant wait for tomorrow.

 

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