And the summer session if finally over. It ended on Sunday with two finals. And now there’s a short week break before the start of the fall semester.
Anatomy: I had already mentioned Anatomy when the class finished up back in July. But I was happy to hopefully finish out my entire “Anatomy Class” career with nothing below an “A grade.”
Biomechanics Lab Practical Final: This was final I was less concerned with because it was not cumulative. It was strictly upper body focused on muscle palpation, bone palpation, and muscle testing. With a lack of a cumulative component and graded as a pass/fail this was the relatively stress-free portion of the Finals Sunday.
Biomechanics Lecture Final: This had an increased sense of uneasiness. Because there was no mid-term lecture exam. We had weekly quizzes that were straight forward so you knew the type of questions that would be asked in terms of format and wording. There was nothing there to trick you. There were questions taken directly from our quizzes, that I remember getting wrong previously so there were moments I’m trying to figure what answered I had because I knew it was wrong.
I’m not sure how many of you take exams but if I don’t know a question, I mark it and come back to it. And for whatever reason I think maybe the questions just seemed more difficult, I had two different 4-5 string of questions that I just wasn’t entirely sure so I started running through my head if I get all these wrong then this is my grade blah, blah blah. But after an hour had passed, on the 80 question exam, I had gotten so frustrated with two problems in particular I just got up circled them and just handed in my exam and said “Forget This.” I thought I dropped a letter grade and I was upset with myself the rest of the day until our grades were released. But I’m relieved with my grade and fortunately for me I was able to achieve the goal I had for the summer session of school, so we’re onto the Fall Semester.
Classes start next week. And there are going to be some very long weekends. Well I’ll use it as a time to study film for football or pay attention. 3 classes
Fall Semester Preview:
Physical Agents: As bad as this sounds, I get to learn how to use ice packs and hot packs…I would imagine it is much more with the intricacies of what is the different between TENS and E-Stim or the uses of Ultrasound. I am guessing this is the first class that starts the foundation of building out a treatment plan in terms of what you can use that is not stretching, exercising, or mobilizing.
Pathology, Pharmacology, Review of Systems: There was never a dedicated class for pharmacology. But in our pathology class, we did discuss different interventions. Fast forward three years, I still don’t envision the ability of chiropractors and physical therapists (in the state/states I’ll be practicing in) to have that ability to prescribe medication but it is important to have a general baseline of knowledge to make sure your treatment programs do not put individuals at risk given what medications they could be on. I’m excited for this class, especially because I really enjoyed my experience with the professor who is the lead for the course.
Research in Physical Therapy: I would imagine this class is going to be similar to what I had in chiropractic school. Discussing the research of what treatment protocols and plans work the best, what treatments are shams, which of the following orthopedic testing is reliability and accurate or “specific and sensitive.”