Internship at Roger C. Peace Rehabilitation

Hospital Elizabeth West

HLTH 4200Fall 2016

Introduction• Throughout the Fall 2016 semester I

was given the opportunity to work as a student intern for Greenville Health System at Roger C. Peace Rehabilitation Hospital.

• I worked in the Acute Care Therapies department with multiple therapists, and was able to gain experience in multiple different specialties including cardiology, pulmonary, neurology, orthopedics, and geriatrics.

• This power point serves to summarize my internship site, preceptor, responsibilities, and projects.

This is a picture on my first day at my internship. I had to wear scrubs and a student ID badge.

Greenville Health System Mission and

Vision• GHS is a public not-for-profit academic healthcare

delivery system committed to medical excellence through clinical care, education and research.

• Mission: Heal compassionately. Teach innovatively. Improve constantly.

• Vision: Transform health care for the benefit of the people and communities we serve.

• Values: Together we serve with integrity, respect, trust, and openness.

• (Greenville Health System, n.d.).

Roger C. Peace

Rehabilitation HospitalThis is a picture of the

entrance to Roger C. Peace. This is a rehab hospital that aims to help patients reach

optimal quality of life. A broad range of patients are treated here including those

who have suffered from traumatic brain injuries, strokes, orthopedic and

spinal chord injuries, and more.

Roger C. Peace Rehabilitation Hospital Description

• The main goal of Roger C. Peace is “to provide the latest rehabilitative and technological services with compassion and encouragement, to help motivate patients and to assist the in re-entering the community as smoothly and quickly as possible” (Greenville Health System, 2016).

• Roger C. Peace is a 53 bed rehab hospital with a variety of skilled professionals.

• Roger C. Peace offers quick and easy access to emergency and diagnostic services, the latest technology and innovative techniques.

Acute Care Therapy• More specifically, I

worked in acute care therapy during my internship.

• Acute care physical therapy is provided to individuals who are admitted to the hospital for short-term care for reasons such as surgery, accidents, sudden illness, etc.

• This kind of physical therapy is typically short term.

This is the Acute Care Therapies office and lounge area. We spent time here working on notes and learning about patients before treatments.

Inpatient Orthopedic Gym• These are pictures of the small gym located on the 2nd floor of Roger C.

Peace. Higher functioning patients in inpatient orthopedic care use this gym to continue to improve their functioning before discharge. We used this gym multiple times throughout the semester, especially for practice with stairs.

My Preceptor and Therapists

• Adrienne Talberto Dr. Talbert is the Director of Therapies and GMMC Sub acute

administrator at Greenville Health System.o She has her Masters of Physical Therapy and Doctorate of Physical

Therapy.• Bradley Ericksen

o Brad is a physical therapy assistant and has 8 years of experience.o His undergraduate degree is in marketing, but he went back to school

to become a PTA.

Internship Roles and Responsibilities

• As an intern, the majority of my responsibilities involved helping the therapists in any way possible. This included the following:o Retrieving and cleaning equipmento Helping explain and demonstrate exercises for the patientso Following with a chair in case the patient got unsteady or too tired while

walkingo Managing IV poles, oxygen tanks, heart monitors, etc. while walking with

patientso Shadowing and observing treatments

• I also assisted in administrative duties each day. I worked with the director of therapies to help her with miscellaneous projects and paperworko Examples of administrative work include excel spreadsheets, organizing

personnel files, completing a policy project for CARF certification, and completing a case study.

Internship Roles and Responsibilities

• I often retrieved oxygen tanks for patient treatments.

• I cleaned the walker and gait belt after each treatment

Internship Roles and Responsibilities

• I spent an hour most afternoons working on some kind of administrative task assigned by my preceptor.

Internship ProjectsCase Study

• My first project this semester was a comprehensive case study.

• I chose a patient based on interest and involvement in his treatment.o Brad and I worked with this particular patient multiple times,

and I became interested in his case. I got to see this patient go from the ICU, up to the regular inpatient floor, and then he was discharged. Because I got to see him go through the entire process, I decided to perform my case study on him.

• I studied his medical history and past treatments using the online documentation system, Epic.

Internship ProjectsCase Study

• I typed up a final summary of the case study and presented it to my preceptor at the end of the semester.

• After presenting my case study, my preceptor gave me some feedback.o I learned that goals don’t always have to be set for total

independence. o The patient I chose for my case study lived at home with his

wife and daughter. Neither his wife nor daughter worked and they were both willing to take care of him, so it was unnecessary to set goals for functional independence for him. I learned that supervision goals are perfectly acceptable for patients with family willing and able to care for them.

Internship ProjectsCARF Policy Project

• My second project of the semester was an administrative project for my preceptor that took me most of the semester.

• I updated all of the standards folders for the upcoming CARF (Commission of Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) re-accreditation. o This included sorting through each folder and

looking up the policies in each standards folder. I had to find and print out updated versions of all of the policies and replace the outdated policy.

o This was a very important project because in order to pass the re-accreditation process, all of the policies needed to be updated and sorted.

Internship ProjectsCARF Policy Project

• This is the file drawer with all of the CARF standards folders that I went through and updated over the course of the semester.

Conclusion• This internship provided me hands on experience with

patients in a setting that I wouldn’t have been able to work in otherwise. o I gained 182 total hours in a total of 5 different specialties.

• Becoming familiar with the administrative side of physical therapy was another great aspect of this internship.o Working under Dr. Talbert, learning about accreditation

processes, employee files, and therapy policies was a part of therapy that I’d never been exposed to before.

• Working as an Intern in acute care therapies was an incredible learning experience, and I am very thankful for the opportunity to work with so many talented therapists and administrators.

References• Greenville Health System. (2016). “Roger C.

Peace Rehabilitation Hospital.” Retrieved 22 November 2016 fromhttp://www.ghs.org/healthcareservices/rehabilitation/hospital/.

• Greenville Health System. (n.d.). “About Greenville Health System.” Retrieved 22 November 2016 from https://www.ghs.org/newsroom/aboutus/.