Reflective account

During the first term of my physiotherapy degree, I was sent out one day a week for 12 weeks on an observational placement in various departments. During one of my observational placements as a physiotherapy student, I was following a physiotherapist in a intensive care unit (ICU). The physiotherapist had a list of patients that she had to see and treat. The first patient we went to see was a patient who had been involved in a serious accident and who had severe brain damage. The physiotherapist at the time had told me before we went in to see the patient that the doctors had diagnosed him as being brain dead. The physiotherapist then told me that she did not agree with the diagnosis given. When we went in the patient was none responsive verbally. As the physiotherapist walked in she began talking to the patient. The patient did not respond to her. She then went on to talk about the treatment that she was about to do. When the physiotherapist was treating this patient she was talking to the patient even though the patient was not aware that the physiotherapist was there. The physiotherapist still had to ask the patient for consent when carrying out the treatment even though there was no verbal response from the patient. When the physiotherapist was passively stretching the patient’s foot, she told the patient that I know you don’t like it but we have to move you. At this point the patient was slightly moving when the physiotherapist was moving the patient’s foot.

To aid my analysis and to explore my feelings, I used the Newham Model of Reflection (1996), which is based on Johns (1995) model. It was adapted to be used within the ICU (Price and Chalker 2000). Using the process used in this model it has helped me reflect upon the situation and to analyse it effectively in an order. The modified model from John’s model (1995) was more focused towards my feeling of the situation as I did not intervene in any way as I was only observing what I was seeing. However, Johns (1995) model was focused on a decision being made. I have described experience above according to Newham’s Model of reflection.

Newham Model of Reflection (1996) (Based on Johns (1995)

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Table extracted from Price and Chalker (2000, pp 52).

As I move on to exploring my emotions I became aware that in the above situation which is the next step in Newham’s model is. I felt that the physiotherapist was interacting with the patient quite well even though there was no verbal communication. The reason I thought she interacted well was her tone of voice when talking to the patient, her caring manner, she maintained the patient’s dignity very well and the fact that she was talking to the patient when she got no response back (CSP 2000). The ...

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