From PT to Patient - Part 2; Compassionate Rehab Therapy

Anticipating hip arthroscopy, I was a basket case. As a runner, I wanted to be pain-free, stable, and fast again. As a Physical Therapist I had seen enough behind the scenes to know what could go wrong.

I discovered that people at my physical therapy job did not understand why I was so concerned. My supervisor, herself a physician, stated, “Enough about your surgery already! It’s not like it’s heart surgery!”

The light bulb flickered in my head...the blogs and posts of hip arthroscopy patients flooded back to me. I felt terror reading them. Was I afraid of the acute post operative pain? Or was it fear of being worse after the surgery...I knew that I could almost deal with my life the way it was now...I’d made my concessions and a pact with my higher power. The fear was...what if after was worse?

My hip surgery was uncomplicated and my rehabilitation therapy was provided by caring, knowledgeable professionals at Howard Head Sports Medicine. Taking my experience as a patient to my Florida PT job didn’t change how I treated my patients in Home Health settings. What my experience reinforced was that compassion is a gateway to trust. In this era of corporate methodical productivity within the health care environment, I as a PT,  have the responsibility to preserve that compassion and get great job satisfaction.

PT’s who have been patients; please share your stories!