Rewarding Journey of Being a Physical Therapist and the Benefits of CP with Zoe
Feb 29, 2024
Barrett
Ever wonder how physical therapists motivate their patients through challenging recovery journeys? Join me and my friend Zoe, a passionate physical therapist, as we navigate this intriguing topic. With her unique insights, Zoe pulls back the curtain on her profession, revealing the rewarding and challenging aspects of physical therapy. Listen in as we discuss the power of setting small, achievable goals, which can culminate in larger victories for her patients.
In our conversation, Zoe doesn't just touch on her professional life; she also opens up about her personal interests outside work. But what really stands out is her journey as a physical therapist. From her educational experiences to her rotations, Zoe shares how she discovered which setting was right for her. Don't miss out on our exploration of the dynamics of hospital and outpatient care, long-term benefits of therapy, and Zoe's strategies for dealing with unmotivated patients. This episode is a must-listen for anyone wanting an in-depth understanding of the physical therapy world. Come for the professional insights, stay for the personal stories, and leave with a fresh perspective on patient motivation and learning.
Ever wonder how physical therapists motivate their patients through challenging recovery journeys? Join me and my friend Zoe, a passionate physical therapist, as we navigate this intriguing topic. With her unique insights, Zoe pulls back the curtain on her profession, revealing the rewarding and challenging aspects of physical therapy. Listen in as we discuss the power of setting small, achievable goals, which can culminate in larger victories for her patients.
In our conversation, Zoe doesn't just touch on her professional life; she also opens up about her personal interests outside work. But what really stands out is her journey as a physical therapist. From her educational experiences to her rotations, Zoe shares how she discovered which setting was right for her. Don't miss out on our exploration of the dynamics of hospital and outpatient care, long-term benefits of therapy, and Zoe's strategies for dealing with unmotivated patients. This episode is a must-listen for anyone wanting an in-depth understanding of the physical therapy world. Come for the professional insights, stay for the personal stories, and leave with a fresh perspective on patient motivation and learning.
Speaker 1:
We've done everything you've asked. Everything's going according to plan.
Speaker 2:
Cover, we want county, and the backpack has never been stronger.
Speaker 1:
So tell us, Governor, what else can we do for?
Speaker 2:
you. I got it from here. Welcome back to another episode of Bears for Angulay Talks Today. I have my friend Zoe with me Today. Thank you, zoe, for being on the podcast.
Speaker 1:
Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on your podcast today.
Speaker 2:
So please introduce what you do as a physical therapist.
Speaker 1:
I work in an outpatient physical therapy setting. I work with people with stroke, spinal cord injuries, Parkinson's.
Speaker 2:
That's very cool. What's been the most rewarding being a physical therapist and the most challenging.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. So I would say the most rewarding thing is getting to work with people People like you right, who are super motivated to be there. It's awesome to meet people with different personalities, different backgrounds, build connections and relationships with them. And then also, I would say it is really rewarding to help people reach their goals. So watching them overcome their mental, physical barriers and reach their goals whether that is returning to a sport, improving their quality of life, getting things like playing with their grandchildren or getting back to the pickleball court Just such a wide array of goals that people have and it's really rewarding to be a part of their process and reaching them.
Speaker 2:
Now I knew everybody's not more to be like me. So how do you encourage the people that are dealing with obstacle? Maybe they had like a belly and belly injury and they're trying to get back into what their way of life was or what their way of life is going to be, after whatever injury or whatever condition they had to go through.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, a lot of times those conversations can be difficult, but I would say it comes down to having those conversations and getting to know the person and seeing what they enjoy doing and what motivates them, maybe starting off with a really small goal, right, helping them reach those small goals in order to achieve an ultimate bigger goal, because sometimes if you pick too big of a goal after that it can often overwhelm people. But just having those difficult discussions, kind of seeing, hey, what things does this person enjoy doing, what do they want to get back to doing, and then finding ways we can motivate them from there.
Speaker 2:
And I know also you like to do other stuff. So what are your other hobbies that you like to do besides physical therapy? And work? All the time, for sure.
Speaker 1:
In my free time I enjoy. I like working out. We have a little garage gym at our apartment and I enjoy working out there. I also play soccer a couple of nights a week in a co-ed league, so I enjoy doing that a couple of nights a week. And then I just also like just hanging out at home. I like watching Netflix. Sometimes I go out with friends, but that's about it. I would say those are my interests outside of physical therapy. Yeah, but with me.
Speaker 2:
You don't have to work out much.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I get my workout and working with you for sure.
Speaker 2:
But you know, we talk about soccer and all this stuff and for a while I used to come in with crazy thoughts and do all that kind of you know, fun stuff and I would say the environment you work in is second to none. I you know I don't advertise businesses in this podcast and that's not what this is, but I always find it interesting on how long people have been doing physical therapy and you know, if you don't mind sharing that, then that'd be great.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, do you mind? Are you asking in regards to like how long I've been a physical therapist for? Oh, yeah, for sure. So I've been practicing for a little over a year, so not too long, but, like you're saying, it is a really awesome environment that I work in. All the other physical therapists are very supportive and I look up to them as mentors. So some of the physical therapists that have a little bit more experience I can always run by questions with them or cases with them if I have any questions about them. In physical therapy school I did have some different rotations. A few of them were in an outpatient setting, like I am in now, and then I also had one in a hospital or inpatient setting. So not a ton of experience right now, but that will come with time.
Speaker 2:
That's okay, you're learning, for sure it comes with the process, that's for sure. Yeah. So you mentioned the rotations. Can you walk us through how that was like for you, why you were studying and trying to figure out what's setting what's work best for you?
Speaker 1:
For sure. So my first actual rotation is, or was where I work at now in an outpatient setting. Am I next to we're in an outpatient setting. I really do enjoy that setting just because, as I said before, you get to work with so many different populations, so many different conditions. So it's really great in the beginning. I feel like I get to learn a lot and have a lot of different experiences.
Speaker 1:
The hospital setting is a little different in the way where you are not working with the patient for as long. You are pretty much just working with them for their stay in the hospital, which is normally a few days, maybe up to a week, and you're really just trying to Make sure the person is safe to return to home. So you're seeing can they get out of bed, can they walk to the bathroom, are they safe walking and all that. So it's a little bit different. I do like, in comparison, how the outpatient setting is a bit more critical thinking and you get to build a little bit more lasting bond with your patient in comparison to, like, a hospital type setting.
Speaker 2:
I know for me. I've been doing physical therapy for a long, long time, so can you explain what the difficulty is for somebody like me that has to be in physical therapy but only in chances lasts so long and like what you could do to help? Somebody like me out.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so with someone like you who could benefit from physical therapy long term right, as long as we can show that physical therapy is helping whether it's for you maybe maintaining your range of motion right and your arms and legs and improving upon things that you want to improve upon like for you your core strength, some gripping strength, some reaching things like that and that we can rationalize that it's beneficial for you, that's great and they'll normally approve more visits. Normally there comes time periods where in the plan of care we don't it would be intense for you to be in physical therapy all year round too but coming up with like a time period where there is a break in the plan of care where you can continue some things at home on your own to hopefully maintain some of the gains we made at physical therapy, take a little time off, perform a home exercise program independently and then, when you're ready to come back in, we can readdress things you want to work on if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and that's always the challenging part I had to enter when I was in physical therapy whether it was school or outpatient therapy, like I've been in. What I appreciate that you do especially is you take it and be like, okay, do you want to be here, do you not want to be here? Like when's going to be your cut off time? And I remember we had that conversation because I remember my wheelchair process was crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
So you know that was a good breaking time. But you can speak from your experience. You can tell how tired I was between then and how tired I am now and I know it fluctuates. But you can kind of like share with people how therapy is really beneficial for somebody like my condition, like Subaporty and a lot of others.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, so I think it's extremely beneficial. Normally, with the sessions, we'll start with just working on range of motion. So with Barrett, then, we've been really focusing on stretching his hamstrings, stretching out his shoulders, things that are naturally pretty tight with him. So if we can maintain that range of motion and prevent it from getting worse, that is awesome, right. And then also working on some things that he wants to work on, like his core strength we've been working on that a lot and then also some like reaching and grip strength and things that are just gonna improve your day to day life and your day to day function. And I think that's something that you do a great job of is letting me know hey, these are the things I really want to work on right, and I can try to help you achieve those goals. So it's really having that conversation with the patient, seeing you know what are their goals, what do they want to work on, and then how can I help them achieve them and how can I help them make improvements or maintain what they already have.
Speaker 2:
It helps a person to be motivated, because a person not motivated is hard to deal with.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I feel like I mean, I'm always motivated to help. You know it's my job. If I was not motivated, that would be a bit concerning, but I am always motivated. I'm always putting in, you know, my max effort when it comes to my patients, because if they don't see me putting in max effort, they're not going to want to put in any effort either, so I think that helps. If that's what you were asking, I would say to me it helps to be patient.
Speaker 2:
I'm motivated to be patient, like I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do that. It's like you know, a mind experience. If you like that you're going to get discharged. I like quicker. More places than not.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean, sometimes you come across that a lot more. I would say in like a hospital setting where people can flat out refuse, like, hey, I don't want to get up and walk, and you can only try to convince someone so much. And outpatient setting. Most of the time, the people do want to be there because they have that decision to be there in the first place. Sometimes, though, you do have people who come in and they need to attend physical therapy for insurance purposes, in order to get imaging done, like an MRI.
Speaker 1:
So those are some people have come across that they were come in and don't believe in the physical therapy process, don't believe that it's going to help them, so they are very unmotivated when it comes to the exercises. I just tried to explain to them hey, let's try to give it our best shot while you're in here. You're in here anyways. Right, it's not going to harm you being here. If anything, it may help, but if someone ultimately doesn't want to be there, they'll ultimately be discharged. But those are. That's the only example I can really think of in regards to that.
Speaker 2:
I mean, I'm not the best one. To be honest, I, to me, always come down to the person doing the physical therapist and you know the person with the personality, with the motivation because I've been a part of physical therapy that they only work with me for about two weeks and I like, okay, we got nothing for you.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, and that can be frustrating for you, especially if you are seeing that it's beneficial for you.
Speaker 2:
Now I will say when I was younger I didn't quite see it as I do now, but that comes with a lot of maturity and a lot of triumphs about you know, finding the right people to keep you going.
Speaker 2:
And there was this one time that I was in a hospital, like almost in a hospital, sending the novel, more like an outpatient person, anything out, but at the time they only had the outpatient in a hospital people together. So I was like it was a cool experience. You're like I got this trying to walk in the. You know, I forget what they call it, but I think they call it the skeleton or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
I got this but, yeah, I get to walk in that and you know, knowing the downsides and the warning signs. I had some pretty scary moments but also pretty warning moments, because when you come up too quick and you know bad things can happen. So I'm like, alright, do I let that, you know, in my mind?
Speaker 2:
and sometimes I did, sometimes I didn't yeah but it's all on staying a part of the process and you know, I know, schooling is tough, so would you give any advice to people that's thinking about physical therapy and you know what route do you think, making use their skills to decide what physical therapy they want to do?
Speaker 1:
yeah, before going into physical therapy, I would definitely shadow out a physical therapy clinic or even work as a tech at a physical therapy clinic just to make sure it is something you can see yourself doing, because it is a really large investment and it you want to make sure it's something you want to do before putting the money into school. I do think it's an amazing and rewarding career. So I think anyone who is motivated to be a physical therapist should pursue that. Someone who is in physical therapy school currently.
Speaker 1:
I know it can seem like a lot of information at once and it can feel like you're constantly studying, but I will say now, being on the other end of that, it was all worth it, right. So it's really hard to see kind of keep your eyes on like that end goal of graduation passing boards when you're like in the midst of your first semester, just with a ton of information. But for me, what motivated me to learn and study was I wanted to graduate knowing like as much information and retaining as much information as I possibly could to be the best physical therapist outside of school. So that's kind of how I motivated myself to study and stay engaged in school with saying, hey, I'm learning this for a future patient. I want to have it down and I hopefully want to retain it, so I know it can be challenging, but try to stay positive and just think of that end goal in mind, and it's definitely worth it once you're out and stay learning because you know new techniques and new new solutions.
Speaker 2:
Come up with that. But if you don't mind, somebody, we're going to school for now for sure.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I think physical therapy is like a very humbling career because I find I am learning stuff every single day. There's so many different specialties you can choose, different courses you can take and learn from. I was told, barrett, before the podcast that I was finishing up a course this morning. It was an online course mostly focusing on coaching principles, coaching people through squats and deadlifts and their form and categorizing them. And then I am also about to sign up for a dry needling course coming up towards the end of the year, which is super exciting. So we have a couple physical therapists at our clinic already dry needling certified and I see the benefits it has for their patients, so it's something I'm super excited to take the course for and learn more about as well well, I'm excited about your future and you know to me, with all the good time about the physical papers and I keep learning and don't stop.
Speaker 2:
So for sure, thank you for reading and thank you for being on the podcast well, thank you.
Speaker 1:
I appreciate you for having me. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:
I did it. You can email me at barretsswaguylyfegmocom.