Hi there!
It’s been a while since we have last chatted. Between April and May, a lot has happened. The biggest feat is that we have moved on from the first semester and already finished a month of the second semester! I would say my classmates and I are all very excited to have moved into this semester. We are now all in on the action, really getting busy with the hands-on classes. In just a month, we have familiarized ourselves with how to use all the machinery (and yes this includes sewing machines), worked through Range of Motion within the major joints in the body, took plaster and fiberglass casts, practiced talking through patient history, and much more. It is actually hard to believe we are already a month through because it has flown by.
Going into our second month, we are getting started with our first lower limb orthoses: foot orthotics. Each of us classmates got partnered up as we took on the “patient-practitioner” roles. I am currently making shoe inserts for Ian, so I took his patient history and took impressions with a smash box. From there, we have poured plaster molds, modified them, and started to pull different materials over them to begin the shoe insert process. Ian, if you’re reading this, I hope I do your inserts justice. For me personally, this has been my first time working with shoe inserts and creating them from scratch. So, fingers crossed they both come out well!
Tomorrow, June 4th is a special day within this second semester because we have our white coat ceremony. I will make sure to have all the details in next month’s blog! But for now, we will just take in the moment of feeling officially official in our fancy new white coats.
Talk again soon!
Savanna Stumpf
