Declaration for Interprofessional Development

This is a letter I composed for the Student Assembly's Committee Organizer in hopes of joining the committee for Interprofessional Development (now called Interprofessional Collaboration). This is where I want the Physical Therapy & Health Care Profession to be when healthcare reform finally happens.  I welcome any comments or responses.

To Whom This May Concern,

I am interested in serving on the Interprofessional Development Committee of the APTASA.  I am finishing my first year at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) and looking to be more involved with the APTA’s Student Assembly.  I have a special interest in Interprofessional Development because health care is changing and its imperative the Physical Therapists are at the round table with other medical professional when changes are made.  The Doctor of Physical Therapy has potential to be the Primary Care Provider in Musculoskeletal care, as long as we collaborate with other professionals, educating them about our knowledge and training.  Having resources available for students that prepare them for meaningful conversations, collaboration & conflict management strategies with other medical personnel, along with assistance locating clinics, continuing education and residency programs, and fellowship opportunities that prepare a PT to be that primary care provider, is what I think the committee should address.

I am currently enrolled in an Interprofessional Education Program (IPE) at ETSU and feel that this model can be used nationwide. Once a semester, I meet with other students of Nursing, Medical, Speech Therapy, Psychology, Pharmacy, Audiology and Social Work for a day of workshops.  Last workshop’s focus was on conflict-management strategies at the clinic.  This two year program will culminate the final year with a community project. One obvious problem that I see PT students having in the IPE program, is that I am the only one!  I am afraid that our role in healthcare is endangered of being pushed out of the inner circle of providers, especially in outpatient care. One way of making sure we are not excluded is by being the creators of the programs and the clinics nationwide.

A common analogy that people use to describe the healthcare system is the “silo” approach to care.  This couldn’t be more true.  Our health care system has been divided into its own sections and we are at the mercy of this separation.  Let us be the change to the system by fostering interprofessional communication.  Let us set up clinics where a collaborative approach to care is taken.  Medical Professionals may all have different backgrounds due to our education, but using this in the most effective way possible to harness patient-center care is imperative for our broken system to fix itself.  Knowing that things can change and that they ARE changing is what gives me hope.  I feel our role as students is to make sure PTs are where we envisioned ourselves being in 2020 and we can do that by providing resources and support to fellow students who are driven to be the change.

Sincerely,

 Melissa

What drives you... to success?

I recently joined a "Secret Society", which, in fact, is just a group of students and two mentors.  This may be the single greatest thing that has happened to me since getting in to Physical Therapy School.  If you'd ever been new at anything, you can understand the wealth of information available and the despair that follows when you begin to drown in it. Lucky for me, a friend threw me a line and now I am in the circle of like-minded individuals, with willing mentors who plan to lead us through this wealth of information and steer us in our intended direction.

One of our first discussions was learning how to "Sell yourself", which was very interesting and got me thinking.   I think its really important to figure out what's driving you, what moves you forward in your life, career or hobby/sport, write it down and keep it somewhere.  When you start to begin to feel overwhelmed or lost, and asking those questions like "Why did I do this to myself?!" you can look back and remember why.

Once we figure out what is driving us, the next thing to figure out is where you are driving to. We often make a wrong turn, or have a passenger that may steer us astray, and as long as we have a map handy, we won't get lost.  Have you seen those pictures people draw that are of what we think success is (a straight arrow pointed upwards) and what it really is (squiggly line mess)?  So when we experience that let down, a failure or a road block, we should remember the direction we originally intended to go with life.

Success can only be defined by yourself.  Only you can be the judge of whether or not you are successful.  If you compare you success to others, you are likely to feel inadequate and a failure.  It is important to realize that you are not the only one who will be on this road to success- you will find help and distractions along the way, but to remember to not judge yourself or others against each other.

So I will stop my preaching, and get on with putting down on the internet where I see myself going with Physical therapy.

Once I graduate school, I plan to start working on my Fellowship in Manual Therapy.  This not only empowers me to become the best clinician possible, but a leader in the field of Physical Therapy.  Not only do I plan on educating and helping my clients, but I intend to use my knowledge to help the community I live in and the PTs I work along side, furthering the level of respect and knowledge of PT.  I believe that in order to provide the best patient-centered care is by working on a team of professionals.  I want to work on a team that has incentive to heal a person and not just to just "do stuff" to them.  I want to be that person who people think of coming to when their shoulder hurts (or their back or knee) and who other professionals refer their patients to for "conservative" treatment. I plan on taking Physical Therapy to the next level of care, we are no longer going to just be rehabilitation but the primary provider when it comes to neuromuscular issues.

So there's my declaration, whats yours?

Heartbreak

Probably my most important lesson I learned in 2012 was dealing with heartbreak.  It consumed my life which lasted pretty much the full year.  During this time, I found comfort from others who were the same situation and reached out towards music as therapy.  If anyone took the time to listen to any of my spotify playlists, they'd release quickly that most of all my music has to do with heartbreak.  

As most who have dealt with heartbreak, it wasn't as simple as simply reaching out to others or to music.  During this time of greif, I initially reached towards alcohol.  Wine was a handy friend, who turned out to be a false friend.  I would get lost in a bottle and end up drunk-texting my ex.  I eventually had to erase his number from my phone to save me the embarrassment the next day brought.  When I was drunk, I became pathetic, feeling isolated and alone.

Healing

When I realized how lost I was, I reached towards medicinal herbs.  I was studying Rosemary Gladstar's homestudy course and the neuro chapter reached out to me.  I started experimenting with different mixtures of herbs in the form of teas.  These calmed my mind, body and soul.  I slowly started turning around my mental state and began to heal. Once my mind was calmed, I could start thinking about picking up the pieces and moving forward.

One of my favorite tea blends is as follows:

Heart and Mind Soothing Tea:

I pt Catnip

1pt Hops

1pt Oats

2pt Lemon Balm

2pt Mint

Boil water and pour over herbs in a tea pot or strainer in a cup.  Let sit for 10-20min.

Sleeping Tea:

Make a decoction of Valerian Root

To make a decoction: Bring water to a boil on the stovetop.  Add roots (1-2tbs/cup of Water) and let simmer for 15-20min.  Longer the stronger.  Drink until tired.

I recently ran across another blog about heartbreak(which inspired me to write my own).  This blog is very well written. Complete with healing words of comfort and recommendations of herbs to use to ease the mind.  Please check it out at: http://mountainroseblog.com/herbs-heartbreak/ 

Sleepless Cycles:

 I have had so many sleepless nights where my mind just cycles.  Durring these times of stress, the same thoughts circle in my head, over and over and over.  Most of the time, I can't quiet my mind and it becomes torture. I use to try to quiet my thoughts by literally tell myself to be quiet.  But, that normally doesn't work.  So I then tried to listen to the thought, accept the feeling, deal with it or let it go.  This helped tremendously with stoping the cycle because I became accepting of my feelings. 

The author the Mountain Rose Blog says to use the herb Skullcap to help with this cycle problem.  Make a tincture and keep it by your bedside for sleepless nights.  The Valerian Decoction/Tincture will also help with extreme sleeplessness.

To make a tincture

fill a small mason jar half way with dried herb of choice, cover with everclear or 100proof alcohol.  Store in a dark place, shaking it once or twice a day for two weeks. Let it sit for 4 more weeks (6 weeks total) Strain with cheese cloth and bottle. Be sure to label date you started the tincture inorder to keep track of time.  Here's a youtube which explains the process in more detail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dloPF1QDuw

I felt empowered after discovering the power of herbs and I soon had the urge to want to heal everyone.    It was all fun and games, until someone got hurt....

Power-struggle to control the mind

A girl came into my life one night.  She was friends with my friends.  She was another climber, a go getter type of gal, just like me.  She had just moved to the [Yosemite] Valley a year or so ago, lived the life and fell in love with a professional climber, who will remain nameless.  Now, climbers aren't exactly the best boyfriend material.  They can be very single-minded and selfish at times, but on the other hand, their spirit for adventure and braveness is something that is very desirable by women like me and my peers.  But often, adventures and climbing are put ahead of relationships and they  soon fall apart.  As her's did.  She was crushed and living alone.  I gave her my  tea recipes and called my other friend who was living in the same area as her to keep her company this winter.  Everyone's efforts didn't help.  She lost the mental struggle of feeling lost.  Heartbreak killed her soul. Let her soul rest in peace.

The year of 2012 was the "realest" year of my life.  I have never been faced with so many trials and tribulations.  My plan for life crumbled infront of my eyes.  I tried to pick it back up and put it back together, but it just kept getting falling apart.  The feeling of being lost in life is one that I would not recommend to anyone, but it is something that some people have to feel before they find their true path.  Sometimes you just have to accept the cards life dealt to you and figure out your best hand and go with it.

Refection
Do we shelter our hearts in hopes of preventing future heartbreak?  I realized that my soul was on the line when my world shattered and I am not going to let my world shatter again.  My heartbreak has allowed me to discover what I really want in my life instead of what "we" want.  I have been granted the independence to do exactly what I want, and it's going to take one amazing guy for me to ever consider giving this up again.

Passions

I want to dedicate a moment of my time and a space in the interweb to focusing on passion.  I absolutely love passion, I love seeing it in other people and I love experiencing it. This is something essential for natural healing, because in my opinion  when you lose your passion, you lose your well-being and a part of what makes you, you.

Passion is when you put more energy into something than is required to do it. It is more than just enthusiasm or excitement, passion is ambition that is materialized into action to put as much heart, mind body and soul into something as is possible. -urban dictionary

Climbing is more than the energy I've invested, it is my life.  It, without a doubt,  drives my everyday actions and planning for the future.  It is one thing I can put my heart, body and soul into without fear of getting hurt.  I have had my heart broken, been denied dream jobs, suffered the betrayal of friends, and experienced the loneliest of the lonely nights.  Every morning when I wake up, I know that climbing will be there for me and calms my mind.  Planning for the weekend gets me through school.  It is actually why I am in school.  The friendships I make and people I meet is the icing on the cake.  I would not love climbing as much as I do if it weren't for all the awesome people who share their love of the activity with me.

There are the "do-ers" and the "react-ers", passionate people are the do-ers. Passionate people make change in the world and their lives.  If it weren't for passion's nothing would happen, our lives and world would be dull.  We would all be walking around lolly-gaging and smelling the flowers (not that theres anything wrong with that).  

Passions are used for positive change and negative change.  Martin Luther King, Jr, Albert Einstein, Lynn Hill, etc.  are examples the positive changers.  Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Hutus and the Tutsi extremist  etc. were all using their passions and ideas for evil.  Passions can break up marriages and families, create authoritarian dictatorships, be used as an excuse to step on the backs of other people, create greed, obesity, and a whole host of other things.  So, I guess the moral of this paragraph, is to be sure to use your passion for positive change, not to use or abuse others in the name of your passion and not to forget the bigger picture.

Whether it be a positive influence or negative one, one cannot live without discovering and tapping into their passion.

The passions are the only orators which always persuade. 
Francois de La Rochefoucauld 

Here I am on The Broach at Ship Rock outside of Boone, NC.  I am preforming the secret to climbing in the southeast, where anyone who is a hard climber, climbs with their tongue out : )

MDs are people too.

I attended a medical conference a couple of weekends ago.  It was titled, "5th Annual Partnering Western Medicine and Integrative Medicine Healthcare Conference..."  and consisted of mainly MDs, Nurses, Psychologists and "others".  I was in the "other" category, as an aspiring student of physical therapy. 

What I realized, is that all these health professionals, who have dedicated their lives to medicine and their practice, are people too. They moan and groan when there's no more milk left for the coffee, they dont know the proper amount of honey to put on their granola and yoghurt (I saw a lady put a humongous spoonful on her granola), some were over weight and with health problems of their own, and some were old and some were young. But the thing that matter the most is that they were interested in Integrative Medicine and pushing the field of health care forward into the realm individualized health care that integrated well being, nuitrition, exercise, and state of mind, into a preventative practice.

I believe we are going to see a paradigm shift in health care.  Obamacare being the start of it.  Our system needs reforming.  Right now, we are shelling out BILLIONS of dollars on disease. The most obvious problem is the amount of money we spend on dieing people.  Today, people are living longer than they ever have in human history and we are now faced with a lot of new health issues.  Back in the day, it wouldn't have matter if you smoked, sat on your ass and ate junk food all day long (although most of that wasnt even an option), because more than likely, some deadly pathogen was going to take  you out before you turned the age of 50!  Now this amount of money we spend on our elderly, is a sticky subject.  After all, these are our grandparents and great grandparents we are spending this money on.  What do you mean you are going to cut back my grandpappy's insurance coverage?  He needs his hip replaced for the fifth time and his lung taken out and put on a ventilator and will need to be in physical therapy for the rest of his life and so on, and so on, and son on.   The problems never end once a person starts dieing.  Its sad and awful, but its the truth.

Now, another issue with our health system, is people taking advantage of it.  Not just any people though, drug addicts.  I don't even know the extent of it. But some people who live in a metropolis where there is more than one hospital within a half day traviel, can go to all the different emergency departments and get pain medication.  One of the most shocking facts I heard about this problem was that a majority of the people who are doing this, use their health insurance.  I personally had a friend in high school die from abusing the health care system, but she used her general practitioner.  I partyly blame the doctor for her death.  Why would you need to refill cough medicine prescription once or twice a month for longer than six months?  But thats a different issue.    There needs to be a cap on prescription refills and integrated management in a region so that a person cant go to five different doctors for the same issue and get five prescriptions of the same pain killer or sedative filled.

So, the conference was focused of overcoming issues like these.  A way to change our healthcare system from a disease management to a disease prevention system.  Health Care systems should be integrative, meaning that a variety of practitioners, all specializing in different areas, work together.  One client can go to one health center and get the treatment for the mental disease that's causing their physical disease, which is actually caused by their diet, all in the same place. One of the coolest centers like this is in New York.  Check out their website: http://healthandhealingny.org/highlights.asp

Western Medicine needs to take a step back from the specializations and look at the bigger picture.  And this needs to be on a large scale.  Some MDs spoke up after some speaches, complaining about how they have heard all these ideas before, in fact, they have been hearing these ideas for over 30 years! Corporate interests and big money institutions are preventing the change in health care, not to mention our flawed economic system that is based on exploitation.  One med student tried to remove McDonald's from the hospital at his school and he was suspended until he quit the fight.  Now how about all the surgeons out there who make money off of the disease and illnesses? Are they going to want to support preventative care?  Money=power and us little guys, most of the time, don't have neither.

Ok, Thank you for reading.

My friend Bob, posted this on Facebook.  Im not sure where he got it.

Letting Go.

Flipping through my journal, and I found this moving entry I wrote back in April of this year, 2012.  I want to share it with those who care.

"So, it's been hard.  A huge tidal wave of emotion and stress is continuously slapping me in the face.

The emotions of letting go of something that felt so right. The stress of getting rid of personal objects that I've collected.  The saying goodbye to those who were such good friends to me.  Its all so hard and I'm upset.  I cry almost everyday.

But, I know this is the right decision. I cannot grow in the way I want to grow here in Bishop.  I'm not that shining star who is going to make change here. its changing me.  I've had to make too many compromises inorder to live and thrive here.

I am tired of running and searching.  I just want to be.  Be free and have the opportunity to study and experience all that I want.  To embrace my family and friends and to be part of their lives again. I'm going somewhere where change is accepted and encouraged.  I will grow as a person in ways that i want to. I will face the excitement of the unknown.  Meet new people. Experience different culture. Be closer to family. See my friends that I havent seen for so long.

I want to live a balanced, healthy and meaningful life.  This doesn't mean I have to live in the most beautiful places out there.  All places have their own beauty.   I dont want to search anymore, but I dont want to lose all that has been important to me.

I am trying out Asheville.  I am not putting all my cards down like I did for Bishop, but I'll put some down.  Take a chance, absorb what I can,  Grow in a positive way, to myself, my family, the earth and its people.  Be the beauty I wish I could see in people and community."

On the road, heading back East.

Vibrations

Today's lecture in Physics class was about sound waves.  What should have only of lasted one lecture, lasted three, because my teacher seems to go on a tantrum about one thing or another every five minutes.

The main concept he was trying to teach today was about interference: constructive, destructive and then most importantly, resonance.  John Graham states that "resonance is the dramatic amplification of vibrational amplitude due to a for vibrating an object at its characteristic frequency." He just explains that when two objects are vibrating in the same frequency, it can create resonance.  This is unlike complete constructive interference where two waves heading towards each other just pass through unaffected and in complete destructive interference, when two waves of opposite (i.e. positive and negative) amplitude pass through each other, they wipe each other out, the waves disappear.

Resonance is fascinating though.  This is how the opera singer breaks a wine glass, how we get sound out of an organ pipe, how we can broadcast onto the radio, etc.  Graham even showed us a video of a bridge that collapsed in Tacoma due to the sound waves created by the wind resonating with the structure of the bridge.  Check it out, here is a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Fi1VcbpAI

Later today, I decided to read the chapter about Quantum Physics by Carol Davis in her book "Complementary Therapies in Rehabilitation; Evidence for Efficacy in Therapy, Prevention and Wellness."  This particular aspect of Quantum physics had to do with the The Zero Point Field theory about the empty space around us, which we call space or air which is. in fact, is full of energy.  For example, when I try a boulder problem, sometimes I climb harder than I am normally capable of.  I almost on sighted Junior's Achievement in my work clothes one day.  I went back to that same problem a month later, and couldn't even get off the ground.

The Zero Point Field argues that we can get energy from the space around us.  My favorite explanation is "this subtle energy matrix that surrounds us, which we move about in, much like the water that surrounds swimming fish, influences our physiological and biological systems in ways that are just beginning to be understood.  It all has to do with the science of bioenergetics and vibrations" (Davis). The book also cites a study done by A.V. Hill (Nobel Prize physiologist and biophysicist) and D.R. Wilkie who proved that "the amount of energy that is needed to drive muscle contraction exceeds the amount of energy produced by the mitochondria."(Davis).

Imagine everyone in the world vibrating, producing waves.  We all have these vibrations coming out of us.  Sometimes when they interact with other vibrations, they are complete destructive interference, canceling eachother out.  These are people who just completely turn you off.  Dont want to be around them, dont want to talk to them.  Sometimes its unexplainable why I or you or anyone would feel this way.  its just how it is.  Most of the time, vibrations between people are complete constructive interference...  meaning that what we say to each other doesnt really stick with us.  We leave the conversation or interactions more or less unaltered.  I would consider these friends and acquaintances   But in some rare occasions (like when the tacoma bridge resonated with the 40 mph wind), resonance happens!

So this proves that I, by myself, do not have the capabilities to climb Junior's Achievement on my own.  It was the vibrating crowd of people resonating with me that day and the energy  in the Zero Point Field  gave me the moment of lightlessness and energy to send (well, get off the ground) a normally impossible problem.  I dont know if anyone reading this has been to the Buttermilks, but the place is magical.  The zero point energy is on High there!

New vibrations are passing through me everyday in North Carolina.  I've been able to tap into the Zero Point Field once again  and have found other people that resonate with me. I finally got a 5.12 clean this year!