student blog

Happy Fall Y’all!!! I cannot believe we are approaching the end of October…pretty soon my cohort will be done and off into the residency world *sniffle sniffle.* But anyway, I am getting ahead of myself and do not want to think about that yet. These past few weeks have been nothing short of amazing. We finished up our upper extremity orthotic course about two weeks ago. We wrapped up with fitting prefabricated wrist hand finger orthoses, fracture orthoses, shoulder elbow wrist hand orthoses, and lastly, our final exam!! Then we dove right into our contemporary practice class and had some wonderful patient models come in and help us with our total surface bearing casting techniques (it was also a wonderful way to spend my birthday!!)

Last week (*drumroll please*) we finally started our prosthetic management of the lower limb 2 class…AKA OUR TRANSFEMORAL CLASS!!! I know I personally have been looking forward to this class since I started the program and so have my classmates. We are SO excited it’s finally here 🙂 It is definitely a change from our transtibial unit, but a wonderful one. Last week, our three amazing patient models came in for castings of ischial containment sockets. We spent last week modifying our casts, fabricating check sockets for them, and then putting our good bench alignment skills to the test. This week we are fitting and laminating their definitive sockets for delivery! It has been so much fun so far and I cannot wait to see how they all turn out. Tune in next week to see the final products!! Happy Tuesday everyone, make it a great week!

Signing off for now,

Fran!!

From new heights of Volcán Corazón (15,682ft) to driving the mobile clinic across to the country of Ecuador, a lot has happened this final week.

It’s hard to believe a country beautiful as Ecuador is only the size of the state of Colorado and can still possess modest towns like Quevedo. There’s definitely not much to see in Quevedo, but the patients are our obligation. From a local culinary experience, inspirational culture, and lessons of humility, the first launch of ROMP’s mobile clinic was an experience Dave and I will never forget.

One by one patients were brought off the sidewalk, given measurements, and casted. Each patient was fit with a liner and then cast with a roll of fiberglass. After choosing the color of his & her new prosthesis, it was time to say goodbye. As quickly as we arrived, we were back on the road to Quito.

My final 24hours in Quito have been exhausting but all casts have been poured, modified, and thermoformed for the return trip to Quevedo. Unfortunately, I’m now on my way back to the United States for my second rotation and I won’t be joining Dave on the delivery excursion back to Quevedo. I’m sure Dave will miss me but I know he’ll hang in there until I return next month.

Yup, I made that decision this week after realizing 5 weeks just isn’t going to cut it and I know Range of Motion Project is going to need all the help once the mobile clinic really begins to develop. I’m looking forward to progressing as a student and being able to contribute more to patient evaluation as my language barrier decreases. Staying disciplined with the Spanish will be difficult but then again whoever said saving the world from a mobility crisis would be easy?

Thanks for reading.

#mobilityforall

-BD

“WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO”

What a more fitting song?! So, what does that have to do with us? * beside the fact I sang it for the whole day on Wednesday* We just finished up with our Wrist Hand Orthoses (WHO for short) this week! We had a lot of fun casting each other and fabricating the devices. This is the first upper extremity class we have had in school and we are so excited to dive in and learn all about it! It’s been a tougher transition, personally, just because we have really focused on lower limb orthotics and prosthetics in our past classes- but like anything, with some more practice and lectures I’m sure it will become easier. Friday, we fabricated a low-temperature splint mold to create a lower-profile WHO orthoses, and today we started our week by fitting some prefabricated JAECO wrist-driven orthoses on one another!! I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Stay tuned for more fun these upcoming days 🙂

-Fran

P.S. How cute is our new little office helper Harley?!

3D Printing – September 30, 2020

This week has been just as busy as always, but in the free time I can find, I have been working with 3D printing programs like Meshmixer and Cura. One of my interests in 3D printing is to design and create foot orthotics by 3D printing. If I can perfect this process, it will cut down on fabrication time because the modification can become almost automated. I have so far learned how to print the orthotics, but there is much more to learn in this field. The material is very important because it has to be similar to the material we are using now, but also the modifications have to be similar to the modifications we are doing with plaster. This will take practice, but I have a good start. My goal is to be able to 3D print foot orthotics for patients by the time I am finished with my clinical rotation this fall.

-Alex Miller

Hello everyone!

Fran back here with the latest and greatest!! Let’s see… it’s been a whole week since we last talked?! Time. Is. Flying.

Anyways, let’s catch up, shall we?!

Last Thursday we wrapped up our big project with…*drum roll please* our KAFO fittings!!! Wahoo!! It went very well, and everyone did an amazing job. Our KAFO project was probably the most time consuming and most involved project we’ve had in school, so I am very proud of my classmates for making it through.

Then on Friday, we ended the week with our KAFO Schemas (a nice fancy word for tracing) with Mr. Mahairas and we had a grand ole time! It was nice to parallel the two techniques used for fabricating KAFO’s- and we definitely learned a lot doing both. Then, finally, at the weekend!! I took advantage of the nice weather, laid out by the pool, walked around Davis Island with my best friend, and watched the sunset!! Weekends are my favorite!

So far, this week has been quite the week and in the best way possible! We are already on our fifth week of the semester; can you believe it? On Monday, Mr. Carl Allen came in to speak to us along with Dr. Gerald Stark (over zoom) about the C-Brace by Otto Bock! We all had a chance to try it on and play around with it. It was such an amazing experience and we had a blast testing it out (as you can see!). Yesterday we finished up our Orthotic Management of the Lower Limb class. And what better way to finish a class than with a final exam!! Am I right? Everyone did great! We also had a little friendly sewing competition after our exam. Our professor, Ms. Crawford, challenged us to sew a small strap with her cat’s, Zazu, name on it. The winning strap would be featured in a small photoshoot with Zazu. Not to toot my own horn *toot toot* but I WON!! So, here is my strap featured with the lovely model Zazu (my heart!!). That is all for now! Tune in next week to see what fun we’re up to! Ciao for now…

Fran

Busy, Busy, Busy – September 22, 2020

Work has been very busy lately, which is great! A busy day makes me stay focused in the lab or with my patients, and the day goes by so quickly. We have been piled up with foot orthotics, ankle-foot orthotics, and replacement sockets. I am able to work with the patients and am doing a great deal of fabricating. One of the interesting sockets we finished last week was an adjustable boa, transfemoral socket. Designed as a flexible socket, rigid frame of carbon fiber. The socket is light and strong and allows the patient to tighten down three windows to decrease the size circumferentially simply by twisting the boa dial.

Los Perros y El Pichincha

This past weekend the gang got together (found friends!) and we climbed the 4703m (15,429ft) mountain called Cumbre Rucu Pichincha. Living in Colorado for a year and working in RMNP for a summer, I’ve been fortunate enough to see some pretty cool peaks at some high altitudes but Pichincha has my tallest Colorado peak beat by over a thousand feet. We were fortunate enough to have photographer Pancho (@panchopaz) with us to capture the experience!

The clinic has steam coming off of it at all times these days as we have been producing socket after socket. We had a new little furry patient join us on Monday with a congenital below-elbow amputation. We were able to successfully cast little Tarzana and will do our best to fit her with a prosthetic arm and hopefully give this little pup one more reason to smile!

#mobilityforall

-Bryce

Hello Everyone!

My name is Francesca Cicchetti and I will be IIOP’s new blogger for this semester and I am so excited to share with you all that we have been up to! We hit the ground running since the first day of this semester, so I am a little behind on sharing our progress. So now that I have a moment to catch my breath, let’s catch up on everything we’ve done, shall we…

This summer I had the amazing opportunity to “Zoom” my classmates and other students in the country my clinical experience at POA in Orlando, FL. It was an amazing time! We were able to interview patients, practitioners and also had the opportunity to observe various in-house fabrications and other projects in the lab!! Since I was nominated for an Oscar for my fine performance, I decided to continue it, here.

Our first week back we started on our ground reaction ankle foot orthoses (GRAFOs for short). It was AMAZING!! It was so wonderful to be able to be back together and in the lab after a long few months of quarantine… I really missed my pals. That week we also had the opportunity to get to know our newest cohort with a hotdog social! Food AND new friends?! What more could we want?! They are absolutely a wonderful group of students and I know they are going to make the finest Orthotists and Prosthetists one day.

So, fast-forward to now, these past few days we have been working on our knee ankle foot orthoses (KAFOs for short). We casted our patients (each other), filled our casts, modified our molds, and pulled our plastic. Then today we did some metal bending for our knee joints and uprights. Something we’ve honestly been dreading for the past few days. And I am proud to report that no tears and only sweat was shed! We will be finishing up our projects and fitting them later on this week. Stay tuned for more pictures and posts to come, I cannot wait to share with you all our semester. Happy Wednesday everyone!

Signing off for now,

Fran

Alex Miller has returned to his family’s Prosthetics and Orthotics practice in Belpre, Ohio. Follow along with his journey as he keeps us updated on his clinical rotation. His website also gives us a look at some of the numerous projects Alex has completed both at IIOP and professionally.

Miller P&O Clinical Rotation

Granadillas y Tortillas – Monday, September 7th

Just when life here in Quito could not get any better, each Thursday a fresh produce truck pulls up to the clinic like a less-fun ice cream man. I kid you not I can get a sack of sweet potatoes, tomatoes, onions, broccoli, carrots, and corn for $3.50! Also, something I need to address, the American dollar is the primary currency in Ecuador, so $50 cash can take you a very long way. I’m pretty used to traveling light and living out of a backpack but this place is like some sort of organic hippie paradise.

I spent the majority of the weekend locating and comparing the prices of different fruit & meat markets. Dave was able to help me out with a bike so transportation has really increased here in week 2. Something else I forgot to mention, the clinic and my apartment sit at 9,300’ of elevation so you can imagine I’m having to really acclimate coming from Tampa, Fl. Just 3 weeks ago I was running 8-10 miles at a time in Tampa and now I’m sucking wind trying to run a mile or two here in Quito.

I’m falling more in love with the Spanish culture and with the recent discovery of $1 a pound for chicken and the ridiculously cheap groceries, I think I could see myself returning. Well, it’s a busy Monday morning and I’m sure my molds are almost dry so back to work!

-Bryce