At this very moment, my future goals are kind of everywhere. I have short term and long term future goals. My short term future goals consist of graduating college with an athletic training degree and to be accepted into a graduate program. Everything is simple and organized up to that point. Once I pass that point of future goals, everything starts turning into back and forth, ever changing thoughts and ideas. I am not yet certain on what exactly I want to go to graduate school for, but the toss up is currently between exercise science and kinesiology. My long term goals are also changing everyday, and are currently a list of options and ideas that I can think about and potentially choose. These include, but are not limited to, working with athletes as a rehabilitative/strengthening coach, being an athletic trainer and a strength coach separately, only doing athletic training, or working with athletes on preventative injury training. All of these ideas of a possible future goal or career is geared towards a very active lifestyle that consists of working with the human body and knowing the human body, as well as assisting athletes and people in bettering themselves. As of now, I probably have not researched enough about how to reach these goals, partly because my goal is always changing. However, I have discussed the options with teachers, my mom (who works in the health field), and people who work in the fields that I am interested in. I have also looked up graduate programs that merge several of the things that I am interested in; for instance, there is a graduate program for exercise science that allows you to pick a focus and one of the options is athletic training. The people I have talked to have all suggested picking a program that allows me to branch out into several things. I am trying to narrow down my choices on what I really want though. I am hoping to shadow a few people in respective fields this summer and maybe intern somewhere that is related to one of my interests. I feel like that would be a really good way to see and get a feel for what each option is like. Additional information that I need is probably information related to the specifics of what is required for each graduate program and what the specific program entails. I have talked a lot about these different options, but I really need to sit down and do the research for each and weigh out my options.
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So far in clinical experience, I have most enjoyed the fact that I’m not moving around every two weeks. Do not get me wrong, I love the diversity and experiences of my sophomore year and rotating with every preceptor and every sport, but I am really finding an appreciation for staying with the same preceptor and teams for an entire semester. I enjoy getting to stay with the same group of athletes because it allows me to really get to know and understand them as an individual and their injury or injuries. It also allows me to to build a really good relationship with my preceptor. Not only does it help me to build a better relationship, but it also allows me to really learn and understand the treatment style that my preceptor has. Every athletic trainer has their own style, but it is hard to understand and see the difference in styles when you only stay for such a short amount of time. Since all of my friends have different preceptors than I do, we find it fun to sit and discuss the new things and new ways we are learning to do certain things, whether it be modalities, taping, or an approach to an injury eval. Each of us are able to really learn these specific techniques and quirks that our preceptor has and then share them with the rest of our class, and to me that is super exciting and makes this year really fun and special! My class is really close as is, but this is something that is making us closer! We are better able to see what we like and what we do not like, and then we share how we can make it better. I guess you could say this is really special to me because it is allowing us all to grow more as clinicians and is really opening up our eyes to AT.
I remember in the beginning when we were starting preseason I told all the freshman and sophomores I was clinicaling with not to get over stressed. I know at the beginning a lot of them were freaking out because they didn't know how to do certain things because they hadn't had a class about it and so on. The biggest piece of advice I gave them was to be a sponge! I told them how as a sophomore coming into the program I was nervous when preseason started, but simply watching what the preceptors and older students did in the clinic helped me so so much, and continues to do so!
When I started the program, the upperclassmen really helped me out! I was timid about approaching a preceptor initially with questions, so many times an upperclassman was who I went to. At the very beginning, I knew how to stretch, but athletes would ask for specific ways I had never been taught yet. The upperclassmen usually could tell I was struggling and would help me through. As I got more comfortable, the upperclassmen really started to challenge me! It was awesome! Let's say I was with football, and we all know football means a lot of taping! The upperclassmen would challenge the underclass men to “taping wars”. We would see who could tape an ankle the fastest and who's would look the best at the end! It is one thing that I think really made me better. In comparison to preseason last year, I definitely feel a whole lot more comfortable! Last preseason I was super eager to learn but I remember being nervous when people would come in and ask me for help. Now when athletes approach me I feel comfortable and more confident in my ability to help them. As an ATS, I feel as though I have a lot of learning to do this year. The end is right around the corner and I need to kick things into high gear! When it comes to rehabs and being in the clinic I am super confident because last year I got a lot of my clinical hours doing rehabs and patient care. However, I feel as though I have some catching up to do with the injury evals and the sideline, spur of the moment decision making. With that being said, my biggest goal this year is to get more comfortable with performing injury evals. I cannot be a good clinician if I am unable to confidently evaluate someone who comes into the clinic with an injury. My interactions with the patients and my preceptors is very good, but I think by becoming more confident in myself and my abilities my relationship with both parties will thrive more! For example, if a patient comes in with an injury and I can confidently go through an evaluation, my preceptor will be able to trust me with more difficult task, and my patient will have faith in my ability to care for them. My goals have not been finalized yet, but these are my tentative goals as of now. 1. I want to become more confident in myself as a clinician. In order to do so, I want to attempt doing an eval on my own at least 1 every two weeks. 2. I want to stay on top of my clinical packet in order to stay ahead. To do so I want to get at least 10-15 attempts per week and 3-5 masteries.
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