TEAMworks China - Lightning Speed Therapy

Looking back on everything we did today, we feel a mixture of amazement and exhaustion.  We started the day by meeting with one of the hospital directors who welcomed us repeatedly and wanted to know if we liked the hospital cafeteria food.  Ha!  (We actually really like the hospital cafeteria food - it's much more like the "Chinese" food we're used to at home than the more authentic food in restaurants here.) 

After that meeting, we headed to the neurology department of the hospital, where we saw inpatient and outpatient adults.  Cheri and Carmen made the rounds doing swallowing/speech evals while Julie and Macey worked their magic in the PT/OT area.  Next came Macey's teaching on AFO's.  5 or 6 outpatients were seen in the therapy clinic with a "triage-like" atmosphere, AKA minimally controlled chaos.  Following lunch, more AFO and kinesiotaping were demonstrated/practiced.  The male staff members were a bit apprehensive about removing shirts for demonstrating/practicing taping techniques, but after much encouragement, they complied with lots of giggling all around.  Another triage clinic of chaos followed taping fun, and we then ended the day with Macey teaching NICU and infant massage.  Yesterday was Julie's marathon teaching day, and today was Macey's marathon. 

Amanda's staff of therapists are not currently being utilized in the NICU; however, it just happened to work out that our translator is the chief midwife in the hospital and has access to the NICU.  She was very excited about the information that Macey presented and can't wait to set up a meeting to discuss involving therapy staff in NICU operations.

We had dinner with Amanda and her staff of therapists at a local hu-hot-style restaurant.  Macey and Carmen might have gotten dishes that set their mouths on fire, finding out AFTER tasting that one of the spices used in the dish was nicknamed 9-volt because biting into it would be the equivalent of licking a 9-volt battery.  Relationships with the staff were strengthened, and many laughs were had about cultural differences in everything from work settings to personal relationships to life ideals.

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