Blog / News
TEAMWorks China - Thursday, November 19, 2015
- Nov 23, 2015
Coming live at y'all from the Beijing airport at 3:30 am. Our bellies are full of French fries and double cheeseburgers! We're trying to remember what we've done for the past two days! It's all kinda blurry so we'll hit the highlights! Thursday morning, Julie and Shannon went with Jonathan, a pediatric neurosurgeon, on his rounds of the entire pediatric floor, pointing out children for Shannon and Julie to see that day. They went to the PICU to see a tiny baby who had multiple surgeries. Shannon returned to work on proper positioning using bendy-bumpers. Julie went straight to work on making a splint for a 6 year old girl who had a de-gloving injury from a noodle machine accident. Not exactly what Julie thought she'd be doing that morning, but flexibility is key here. Hashtag TIC. Carmen and Cassie assessed a newly adopted child with CP from the orphanage we visited earlier in the week. He was full of laughter and happiness. Carmen worked with him on certain sounds and provided techniques to work on these sounds to his adoptive parents who are ex pats. Cassie assessed his ROM and provided strategies for improved ROM and strength. She also fitted him for a benik splint, and she guided a local therapist in kinesiotaping him for hip external rotation and plantar flexion bilaterally.
Later in the morning, Shannon taught a session on AFOs, utilizing the adopted child with CP from this morning. There were frequent comments about how similar the AFOs looked, and Shannon explained in detail the differences and uses of each one. While Shannon taught, Carmen visited the ENT department. She got to spend time with a British ENT, watching ear suction around a perforated ear drum, wax removal, and observe video fluoroscopy. She was able to make recommendations for a patient who has vocal nodules.
Meanwhile, Julie was still working on that splint... Cassie joined her to no avail. Dr. Willy, our former splinting professor, would be so proud!
We treated the local therapists to a traditional hot pot meal. We were all on the struggle bus trying to use our chopsticks during this meal, except for our fearless leader, Julie. Chopsticks and slimy hot pot noodles are a dangerous combination!
Carmen's afternoon was back in the ENT department, where she gave a PowerPoint presentation on tips for working with hearing impaired children and explanations for why a child who CAN hear might not be speaking within appropriate age ranges. Currently, the ENT department does not have an audiologist. They test hearing abilities but don't have much to recommend beyond normal hearing or hearing impaired. In all, there were approximately 10 doctors, nurses, and the department head at the presentation. The entire department was pumped to learn that they can refer patients to the therapy clinic in the hospital. The department head was so excited that she asked to be notified a couple of months in advance prior to the next trip. More doors opening to provide services to a wider array of children and adults with needs! Praise, praise, praise!
Julie then taught on the PEDI to provide the local therapists with more standardized testing materials and to educate on age appropriate self care skills and mobility. Julie explained that while the PEDI is an evaluation tool, it can also be utilized for treatment strategies. With this evaluation being so concrete and straight to the point, the therapists were eating this up!
While Julie was teaching, Shannon treated a foreigner with pain from a previous knee dislocation. He was provided with a home program.
We wrapped up Thursday at the hospital with a session explaining and educating on everything we brought including fine motor and sensory toys, ADL equipment, speech cards and equipment, and the stander and gait trainer.
Thursday night was full of fun festivities including having dinner with the big wigs from the hospital and rocking out some karaoke with the local therapists. The big wigs presented us with gifts and showered us with toasts as they were very thankful to have us back this year! Cassie might have dropped the jade gift as it was being presented to her by the number one man in command. Oops! Everyone laughed, especially Amanda. Julie led the groups' toast expressing how thankful we are to be able to come and serve two years in a row and how we are excited to come back next year! We were then off to meet the therapists for KTV (KARAOKE)! We sang. We laughed. We danced. Ending the night, we presented gifts to all the therapists and highlighted their strengths. They then returned the favor!
