Tag Archives: placement

My lessons from 400 hours of clinical placement

Last week I finished my final year placements, 400 hours of them. This was a massive relief and burden lifted off my shoulders because I was there from 9-5 four days a week, which is a lot when you’re not getting paid. During this time I learned a lot, and not just about being an exercise physiologist, but about being a better human. This blog will be a summary of what I learned with each one after this expanding on these learnings and how I came about them.

My first placement was in Cardiac Rehab within a hospital and this was interesting because we began during COVID so we weren’t seeing patients for 12 weeks (out of a 15 weeks placement). This meant that we spent a lot of time working within the hospital system, it was here that I got exposed to the level of hierarchy which makes it up.

My lessons were:

  1. I don’t like a hierarchy where you get looked down up in a ‘lower’ position, or have to act differently with people in higher positions than you
  2. I saw how hard it is physically but more-so psychologically going through a heart attack or similar cardiovascular event.
  3. I realised how preventable conditions such as cardiovascular disease aren’t necessarily the people’s fault per-se, but there were many societal and personal factors which lead to the development of these conditions

My next placement was across 5 different mental health wards, all dealing with severe mental illness, that is, schizophrenia, psychosis and bipolar. These ranged from intensive care for the most acute patients across the district to a rehabilitation facility which was less acute and more focussed on improving function. My lessons were:

  1. Growth happens quickest when you’re furthest out of your comfort zone.
  2. Never assume, ever
  3. You need to ask personal questions, and people often respond well to them
  4. You get back what you put in
  5. In a job you need to have the buy in from the people who really matter
  6. Sometimes you just need to play the game
  7. Take your breaks
  8. Just because it’s the status quo doesn’t mean it’s right

My final placement which I only did a few hours at was in a clinic with a predominately older population and a very rigid set of expectations of how you should act. This was interesting because I don’t work well in rigid environments typically, and here it could be very demoralising because did not necessarily need to use our clinical judgements much at all, and you could easily bludge.

My one lesson from this placement was:

  1. Everything is what you make it.

These are all quite brief and pertain to not only being an exercise physiologist but any working person. Placement was an amazing opportunity to rapidly learn new things and adjust to different styles of working. Overall I think this was where I really grew as a person this year, particularly in my mental health placement because of the challenges it put onto me. I would love to know what other experiences people have had that have lead to some insight into work or life more broadly.