Anja Bliss

03JUNE2022

Journal 3

Dr. Grossnickle

In all honesty, this week was TOUGH. Heather’s 50th birthday is in November, but she

won’t be able to celebrate then, so she went to Hawaii this week to have an early celebration. I

am excited to see all the pictures she brings back, but I am also excited for her to be back so that

I can come back to MP4 (medical plaza 4). Heather, very kindly, coordinated with the high-level,

sport clinic across the street (Ironman) for me to follow alongside Erik this week while she’s out.

Erik is very nice and ironman has a lot of cool equipment, but the physical therapy environment

did not feel professional or skilled.

I’ll start by saying that I saw some very cool things like an anti-gravity treadmill and a

blow flow resistance machine, both of which I got to try on myself, but I also saw some less-

than-ideal care and interpersonal communication. Erik was kind and professional the entire time

and I have limited complaints for his performance, but some of the other PTs at that clinic need

to have a meeting with HR. During my time there, I heard sexist comments directed at multiple

people, inappropriate comments about differing political beliefs, “locker room talk” and just

general nastiness among the PTs. I felt like there was a significant amount of unprofessionalism

and I would hate to be stuck there for 6-14 weeks as a girl or minority.

One of the PTs carried around a huge knife in his pocket and was intentionally mean to

me at every interaction. He also continuously made weird comments or said things that got under

my skin. Weapons of any kind are strictly prohibited in that building, so I do plan to tell Heather
when I see her again. I also felt that people did not always know who or what they were treating.

They would make up exercises and occasionally, when I would ask what the patient’s diagnosis

was, they weren’t able to remember to tell me (sometimes they didn’t even know). I specifically

remember asking about a knee patient, and the PT said, “it doesn’t matter because we treat most

of them the same: quad strengthening.” That felt like unskilled PT to me.

Overall, I was unimpressed with all patient interactions and general cleanliness of the

clinic and do not recommend sending students to The Woodlands Ironman (soon to be The

Woodlands Rockets). There were multiple instances where patients were put on dirty beds and

then they would complain and be called “high maintenance” behind their backs. I definitely

learned what not to do at in my PT career, so I guess it was still a learning experience.