This year for my internship I will be interning at Fort Lewis College in the athletic training department. I am personally very interested in athletic training and the physical therapy career. In 2011 I dislocated my shoulder while playing lacrosse, one of my favorite activities. I was in physical therapy and at the athletic training office at the high for many weeks working on getting my shoulder back to the strength it was suppose to be at. I know have to get surgery in early April to fix my shoulder. Throughout some of my college researching this past year I have talked to a few schools about their athletic programs and the curriculum for them. I think that this will be not only a good thing on my resume for colleges but it will also help me decide if it is really what I am interested in and it is a possible career I would like to pursue.
The athletic training department’s purpose is to get the college athletes back on the field or court as soon as possible after an injury. Their job is to get athletes back at their sport. Athletic trainers know what they are talking about, have a lot of experience and they are free. The trainers go to offer support to injured players injured players.
My mentor throughout these next three weeks is Wayne Barger, the head athletic director at the college. I interviewed with him a few weeks after I first emailed him about interning and from the beginning he was ecstatic about having an intern. This is not his first intern in fact he has had. He had high schooler earlier this year for a few months. Along with running the athletic training office he also teaches a few beginning athletic training courses at the college. Wayne is allowing me to sit in on some of the courses he teaches as well. In my future it won’t be simple becoming an athletic trainer or a physical therapist there will be a lot of hard work and knowledge that needs to be put into it. There is a possibility that Wayne will not be my only mentor throughout my experience. They’re a few different physicians in town that also go into the office at the college weekly and check up on patients that may need x-rays, surgery, or any other sort of thing that cannot be done at the college. I may also have the chance to work with them throughout the three weeks I am there as well.
For my project I am planning on making a helpful poster for the athletes in the office or for myself. The poster will consist of exercises that will help me after I get my shoulder surgery in April. My plan for my project is to have a complete revised poster that will be helpful to many people. I am planning on creating it on Photo Shop. I have a lot of background knowledge in photo shop that will be helpful in creating a beautiful final project. I also have had a lot of time in a physical therapy office and I know some basic exercises that will be helpful. This project will be helpful not only for me, but also for the people that come into the office at the college. Shoulder surgery is very common for people to get. The biggest problem with getting shoulder surgery is that it takes six months to recover and it is not easy work. I think that having poster like this for people will be helpful to remind them the importance of working on making the injury stronger and also to recognize it can be simple.
Within the first week of my internship I am planning on researching and learning new exercises. I want to have the most helpful exercises picked out by the end of the first week. The second week I would like to have a draft done. I would like to have my poster completely drafted out by the second week. The second weekend I am planning on making the draft on photoshop. The last week I would like to have my poster critiqued by many sources and finish the final touches up. My personal computer that had photoshop on broke a few weeks ago so my plan as of now is to either get a computer before my internship or schedule time during the week to go into Roxy’s classroom and work on it. My interns will always be there to help me trouble shoot problems that I have and also I have my physician to work with. He can help me with exercises that he specifically wants me to do after I complete my surgery. This will be very helpful incase my intern has a different idea of what the first step exercises should be.
I know that throughout my internship I will probably have to trouble shoot through obstacles and I will need support. I know that I have multiple resources in the industry that will be willing to help. Also, back at school I have teachers that will always give solid critique and will be able to help with having a beautiful final project.
This is an example of what my poster could look like. Of course it will be more involved and easy to understand. I will also have small explanations of the exercises like this poster does. I think that the pictures are simple and easy to understand and that is a good thing to take in mind when I make my poster. I would like to go into my internship the first week and look at dimensions so that I have a good idea of the size of most of the posters and so that I can create a quality sketch that is as realistic as possible.
