Rebecca Cordie on her time in Philip
Week One:
Week one was great! I arrived in Philip Sunday evening and was greeted by our host, Crystal. She showed me to my room and allowed me to get settled and soon Tia arrived. Monday morning we stepped into Philip Health Services where we met with Jennifer and Jody, the HR/ marketing manager, and the HR assistant. Jennifer showed us around the hospital and clinic, introducing us to everyone we passed in the halls, and then took us on the town tour before taking her son to camp. I spent the rest of Monday in the lab. More details to come next week about the lab as I spend more time here!
Every other Tuesday, Dr. Duchene, an orthopedic surgeon from Rapid City, comes to follow up with his patients. Tia and I split up and I spent the first half of the day in radiology learning about the different views Dr. Duchene likes for his patient’s follow up imaging. Dr. Duchene said about 50% of his practice is replacing joints so I saw a lot of shoulder, hip, and knee replacements! The rest of the afternoon I met with patients with Dr. Duchene.
We spent Wednesday morning with home health and the afternoon with community health. I was able to listen to a heart murmur in one of the home health patients, so that was interesting! Meeting with patients was fascinating to see, and going through each of these patients medication lists proved to me how important home health nurses are. In Philip, the nurses condense all of the medications a patient needs into one list, split into the times of day each medication needs to be taken. When a patient is on 30 medications, it is very important to keep the medications straight.
Later, Heidi with community health, shared with us the abundance of programs she utilizes, including WIC, family planning, and many more. She works to get people the medical resources they need at an affordable rate. She also has a huge role in educating those that come into her office! Many do not believe they will qualify for her programs, but Heidi is usually able to help those who need it.
The rest of the week was spent in the clinic, following Terry Henrie, one of the PAs in Philip. Terry showed us some interesting cases he had worked on in the past years and then took us to the gym in town to introduce us there. It’s been a great first week and I’m looking forward to week two!
Week Two:
Week two we had the opportunity to spend a lot of time in the clinic in Philip and over in Kadoka. Kadoka is a Philip Health affiliate about 30 minutes southeast of town. I learned about wellness exams, ischemic limbs, and helped dermabond a “hiking in the badlands” injury. We also saw quite a few orthopedic injuries this week! Dr. Scarborough, an optometrist who comes to Philip every Tuesday, also taught us about glaucoma, cataracts, and many other eye diseases and how to test for them.
Outside of the hospital we stay pretty busy, too! This week I decided to run with Dr. Holman, who runs marathons in his free time, and Terry Henrie, who also is an avid runner. Let’s put it this way- it did not end well. Tia and I also made it over to the baseball games this week and had dinner with Terry and his family.
Week two showed me that learning isn’t limited to the hospital in Philip, I also realized how much there is to do locally, now that we have been here for two weeks! Can’t wait for week three.
Week Three:
This week was pretty similar to last week and it went very fast with the Fourth of July holiday. I spent Monday in the lab which stayed busy with drawing patients from the clinic, hospital, and the ER. On top of that, Philip receives Kadoka’s specimens that need tests done every day when the courier comes to pick up their blood to bring to Rapid.
Wednesday we were in the clinic with Terry Henrie, PA-C, and I was able to administer a Toradol shot, freeze actinic keratosis growths, saw a broken hip, and also saw a patient with a very large thrombosed hemorrhoid.
Thursday morning we were with Silverleaf, the assisted living center. We spoke with Vickie about some of the state regulations and spent the rest of the afternoon in the clinic. I was able to freeze actinic keratosis growths, practice IVs and suture a patient. Our article in the newspaper also came out, so we were able to see that as well. Our evening was filled with baseball games as this week was the first week of tournament play!
Friday I spent the morning in lab and the afternoon in the clinic. It was a pretty slow day altogether so Terry took us to shoot his bow. It was hot out and Tia and I weren’t very good shots so we headed back to the clinic.
Week Four:
Our last week started out with Monday in the lab. One of the patients was okay with letting me draw her blood, so I was able to practice and get my first real blood draw. Barbara, one of the technicians, let me perform some of the tests needed and Paul, one of the other technicians worked with me on making peripheral blood smears!
We spent some time in the downtown pharmacy in the middle of the week. We were able to see what goes on behind the scenes and were able to watch the bubble packs for the nursing homes, hospital and clinic be filled.
We were able to spend quite a few hours in the clinic with Dr. Holman this week and were very hands on! On Tuesday we saw two patients needing cryotherapy, one for a wart, and one patient for multiple actinic keratosis that needed freezing. On Thursday, we went to Kadoka in the afternoon after our final presentation to follow up with his care center patients and saw patients in the clinic. Then, on Friday I was able to jump in on a few OB visits! These were really awesome to be a part of and I really appreciate the patients being so willing to have me in the room. I cannot thank Dr. Holman, Terry Henrie, Connie and the rest of the staff enough for providing such a great experience.