OMM: Three's a Crowd

Today there were three students in Dr. KB's office today: me and the two first-years, David and Kevin. Only two students could enter the room at the same time. Once, after we finished talking to a patient who ended up needing manip, the first years went to the manip room with Dr. KB while I went to see the next patient (a 19-year-old getting her first Pap smear) alone. Well, I didn't do the Pap smear alone; I just did her physical and chatted with her since she went to Seguin HS and I went to LHS. Dr. KB explained everything that she was going to do during the Pap smear so the girl was pretty relaxed. A lot of people brought food today (Robin brought Chick Fil'A nuggets in biscuits, another doctor sent a tin of chocolates, Melissa made mint chocolate chip cookies, etc), so in our spare time we went to the back to grab some snacks. In the middle of the morning Kevin and I went to see a manip patient who wore leather pants (not good for finding PSIS on), and I successfully did two lumbar rolls on her (one on each side) so that when Dr. KB came by to check on the patient, there was nothing left to pop. I even got one successful Kirksville crunch, though I am by no means good at it. The first years took turns seeing patients with Dr. KB and me since Melanie doesn't take students; whenever one was in the exam rooms, the other sat down with Robbins and studied (they have an immunology exam next week). I couldn't help but wish that I could sit down and study for OMM (I did get some study time in during lunch hour)

I think I'd make a good preceptor someday; whenever I had a manip patient and felt something out of place, I'd let the first year with me diagnose, too. Kevin actually found a non-neutral on the thoracics of one patient before I did, and David got a head start on diagnosing cervical spine. For one 88-year-old lady under severe emotional stress (her husband of 70 yrs passed away last summer), Kevin even offered to do Reiki, a form of energy healing. I'd never heard of such a thing, but Dr. KB has done it before and seemed impressed that Kevin knew how to do it (and very well, apparently; that lady walked away more relaxed than when she came in) Kevin seems very interested in alternative medicine and had no problem chatting with patients or Dr. KB about trying different supplements and other things. At one point after Dr. KB came back in from a smoke break, Kevin said, "Think of all the time and money you'd save by not smoking." Dr. KB just laughed, but I was just amazed b/c no one else (even her employees) would dare tell her not to smoke. At any rate, both David and Kevin learned a lot from Dr. KB about using hydrocortisone to treat patients with autoimmune diseases and were impressed with what she does. We had one patient come in hoping to get off prednisone after taking it for 20 years; her skin is very thin and bruises easily and her bones hurt all the time =/ Not very pleasant effects, but it was an interesting case to see.