My Experience at 'Care of the Pregnant Patient'

The following testimonial comes to us from Karen Dys, PTA. Karen recently attended the Care of the Pregnant Patient course, and she was inspired to send in the following review. Thanks for your contribution, Karen!

I have been working as a physical therapist assistant for 11 years and worked in a variety of settings. In the past two year I have become more focused on pelvic floor rehabilitation. During that time frame I have had a handful of pregnancy patient including being a pregnant woman myself. Since taking this course, my mind has been opened up of how I can treat my patients and educate them for their best future outcomes. I also can see now how I would have benefited myself if I knew some of these techniques that I’ve now learned. With knowing with my personal story and that my PT could have helped me more with avoiding bed rest and staying active longer with pregnancy, it has become my goal now to treat my pregnant patients differently. I am thankful for Herman and Wallace courses to gain these wonderful techniques to reach out and help so many people.

Within the first few moments of meeting the teacher at a continue education class I can tell if is going to be a good class or not. This course started out great with a very friendly and kind person. Sarah’s compassion and knowledge brightly shined throughout the weekend of teaching. It was very refreshing having a teacher who also has experienced some of the same problems are patients go through. It gave it a good personal perspective of how we can affect our patient outcomes.

One thing that I really appreciated at this course was the comfort level felt during the entire weekend. Right from the beginning Sarah made it clear that no question was stupid to ask. She explained that we are all at different learning stages in our career and that we are working together to gain this knowledge to be better therapists. I really appreciated hearing that and I know it made some of the new pelvic floor therapists feel more comfortable as well. I enjoyed having different labs throughout the weekend to practice these new techniques with new therapists of different educational levels. Sometimes I attend courses being more confused on techniques because the teacher, assistant or other course mates don’t have the time or knowledge to explain in further detail. At any of my Herman and Wallace courses I have attended, especially this one, I have not felt that way.

So I attended this wonderful class and now what? Well during the class I was thinking of my pregnant friends who are expecting multiples and how I can help them with their already felt extra swelling and low back pain. I also was thinking of some of my post-partum pelvic floor patients and how if I would have known some of this information sooner I could have impacted their pregnancy. Some things I would have changed were compression stock wear, abdominal binder/ brace wear, labor positioning techniques and strengthening more with education for post-partum phase. So now I have brought back to my company more knowledge of how to evaluate, assess more correctly and treat pregnancy patients. I have led a in-service for my coworkers who are primarily orthopedic based . They had a good take away of how to help patients with orthopedic complaints of pain who also happen to be pregnant.

I am thankful for this course I attended and look forward to making it a regular event I attend. Herman and Wallace courses never disappoint. Thank you.

Karen R Dys, PTA