Pre-arrival: Preparation

Hi everyone!

Well, day one at CMMC (children's memorial medical center) is already next week!! I'm excited yet nervous yet confident yet feeling incompetent all at once. Not so much right now because I'm still in south Florida on vacation, but the feeling's there (and growing!) all the same.

Over the last couple months, CMMC has been sending me oodles of documents to read. I was getting overwhelmed, especially when I found out my classmates haven't gotten much at all, even those going to other children's hospitals. These documents included:

1. A welcome letter which summarizes the status of my pre-arrival requirements, my tentative schedule (inpatient on M, W, and F, and outpt on T, R)and contact info about my supervisors. There's info on parking, transportation, meals, dress code (no lab coats tho b/c "some children find them frightening"), and documentation, too. Also included are instructions for my first day, Jan 3. I must "arrive a little before 8:30am" for orientation that will end at noon. I'll get my badge, a tour, and info about the required testing. Yes, she said "testing". More on that later.

2. Info on parking ($26/day at the connected garage... uh, NO THANK YOU! but there are other options)

3. "Documentation Competency"-- Intro says: "Prior to proceeding with the testing for the documentation competency, please review this information. If you have any questions, speak with your manager to clarify PRIOR to taking your written test."
... and the rest of the document contains the following headers: I. Referral/Authorization Process, II. Types of Notes, III. Goals, IV. Documentation of Patient/Family Education, V. Discharge Planning, VI. Pain. Each of these have sub-headers, and each of those are separated into inpatient/outpatient. Unfortunately, I don't think this will be the only test I'll get... read on.

3. "Student In-service Suggested Topics" -- This document lists 18 topic ideas, ranging from "Test log creation. Go through all tests in outpatient clinic and create a chart of test/ages targeted, skills targeted." to "Developmental apraxia of speech versus severe phonological disorder" to "Auditory processing disorders - what are they and how can we treat?" I guess doing an in-service won't be too bad, because if I'm teaching something to an audience that is not knowledgeable in speech/language/swallowing pathologies, then I can keep it kind of basic.

4. "Speech Language Swallowing Orientation and Guidelines Manual... Subject: Objectives of the Speech Language Swallowing Affiliation" -- and there are 3 pages of bullet points listing the objectives. These include things like "Demonstrate knowledge of...", "Complete projects for the department...", "Give appropriate referrals...", "Identify potential safety issues..."

5. "Clinics at Children's Memorial Hospital" -- this lists just as it says. The intro to this says they want us (students) to observe other departments/teams that we are interested in (like cochlear implant team, nutrition clinic, and special infectious disease clinic). I think that's the coolest thing ever that they encourage this. I hope to be able to observe every one of them ^_^ They list 6 clinics that allow student observers.

6. Timeline for students. This is a week-by-week chart for my outpatient rotation which delineates therapy, evaluation, and project goals. It goes to 10 weeks, but my rotation is only 9 weeks. Week 1 is observation mostly, and the rest builds responsibility from writing SOAP notes for 2-3 pts/day & writing up evals, to planning tx activities & doing more during evals, to seeing all patients for tx, doing all evals, and presenting the final project to the team.

7. a copy of a "Student Observation Feedback" form. Based on the document title and what's on it ("Strengths of session", "Next steps", and "Supervisor signature"), I'm still not sure if this is where I write about what I observe, or what the supervisor writes of her observations of me. It's probably the latter...

8. a copy of a "Treatment Session Plan" form. There's a chart with "goal", "activity", and "data" labeling the columns.

9. And finally, I get a notice via email that I should come pick up "2 binders of reading material which [I] will be expected to read during the first 2 weeks of [my] placement"... She suggested I come get them over Christmas break so I can get a head start. I took them with me to Florida, and let me just say that if I wasn't overwhelmed before, I am now. There's a binder each for my "speech-language placement" and "oral motor-feeding placement". These include typical development, definitions to terminology, several articles about the disorders and etc., and some articles about treatments for them, and some samples of parent hand-outs, and etc etc. Also some sample official reports. I tell myself it only looks like a lot of info because the papers aren't printed double-sided, but I dunno. And guess what I found in the oral-motor/swallowing binder - a "Competency Protocol" AKA a test! "Give three reasons to refer for a feeding/swallowing eval... what types of foods/feeding methods are appropriate for a typical: 1/4-6/9-12 month old... describe the progression of development of chewing" Yikes! Having caught sight of this last week, I have been making flashcards, but I still don't know how much I really have to know yet. Of course I want and need to know for the sake of my clients/patients, but I do have a week of observation first, right?? ::sigh::

Well that's enough of an update for now. That's all I know at this point anyway. For those who plan to do Chicago for their outplacements, I'm moving into a studio in Lincoln Park (north Chicago) this weekend so I don't have to commute from my parent's suburbian home. It's literally around the corner from the CMMC outpatient clinic, and 9 mins walk to the hospital. I'll commute on the 'EL' when it comes time for UIC Hospital, probably for 30 mins. Found the place on www.craigslist.org . It'll be expensive, but I'm sure it'll be worth it.

Next time I post, I'll have a lot more to share about orientation day! :-)