My Summer

July 15, 2024

Throughout a very busy summer, my main focuses have been around my summer internship while working alongside Dr. Beltz to make progress on our research project.

Summer Internship

Now that you have had the opportunity to learn about where my passion started for physical therapy, let’s talk about what I have been doing to gain professional experience. Throughout the summer I have worked at a small rehab clinic in my hometown in southern Minnesota. Through the Martin County internship program and United Hospital District in Fairmont, I have had the opportunity to gain an enormous amount of professional experience this summer. During my time at UHD’s rehab clinic, I have worked alongside physical therapists to observe physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech language pathology in both inpatient and outpatient settings. I have gained knowledge while shadowing post-operative rehabilitation for total knee replacements, rotator cuff repairs, lumbar fusions, as well as sports injuries and chronic pain. Along with observing therapists, I have also worked with the Health Unit Coordinator for the rehab clinic. The duties in this position require me to complete housekeeping tasks, as well as checking patients in for appointments, answering phone calls, and assisting patients in making appointments as necessary.

My summer internship has greatly impacted my professional experiences and allowed me to gain a large amount of knowledge I would have otherwise not had the opportunity to experience. This internship is a key factor when I begin to apply to graduate school as observation and professional experience are required for Doctorate of Physical Therapy programs. It will also be beneficial as I have learned many important factors of professional presence while working with patients.

Summer Research 

Along with my summer internship, I have spent time working with Dr. Beltz to gain progress on our summer research, “Reliability of bioelectrical impedance to track off-season body composition changes in Division 3 football players”. At the end of my last post, I noted that we had finished collecting our first data collection at the end of January. Since then, we became very busy when we began taking the second data collection during the final weeks of the semester. We were able to complete the second set of data collection in a timely manner, finishing before the start of summer. Finishing this data collecting, gave us the opportunity to begin making comparisons of the first months of the football players off season. To do so, Dr. Beltz and I took all the data and compiled it into one excel file to provide easy accessibility. Since compiling data, we have been at a small stand still as we wait to complete the third and final data collection during the beginning of August. When the third data collection becomes complete, we will begin taking an in depth look at the body composition changes seen in the football players as well as the possible differences between the BIA and DEXA machines.