Blog 18: Third Answer

Content:

Just like you did for answer 1 and 2 post your:

EQ: What is most important to rehabilitating a skier or snowboarder after a traumatic injury? 

Answer #3 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement)*: In order to rehabilitate a patient the first hand responder needs to triage the patients correctly.

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example):

• Triaging patients will help the first hand responder know the most severe injured patient. In a mass casualty accident there are multiple patients to deal with and the first hand responder needs to know which patient is the most severe in order to decide the order of treatment. For example, if there was a ski accident involving three skiers, where one hit a tree and had internal damage, another broke their arm, and the last one is unconscious, you would triage the patients from most severe to least severe which would be the skier that hit the tree, the unconscious skier, and then the skier that broke their arm. 
• Triaging patients will help the first hand responder know who to take care of first. Triaging means the assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties. In order to triage you need to know the patient's needs or concerns and the severity of their injuries. For example, if you use the same example from the first detail once the first hand responder decides who has the most severe injury they deal with that patient first until more help arrives. 
• Triaging patients will help the first hand responder know where to send each patient. For example, if you use the example from the first detail the first hand responder would send the unconscious patient and the patient that hit the tree to a higher level trauma center than the skier that broke their arm. 

The research source (s) to support your details and answer:

• My first independent component, taking the Outdoor Emergency Care class with Trevor Samorajski helped me come up with this answer because he put a lot of emphasis on triaging patients.
• The Outdoor Emergency Care: 5th Edition book by  Deborah A. Endly, David H. Johe and Edward C. McNamara helped me come up with this answer because it talked a lot about trauma injuries and how to triage patients.
• Nurse to Nurse Trauma Care by Donna Nayduch helped me come up with this answer because this book is all about trauma patients and learning how to help them.

Concluding Sentence: In order to rehabilitate a patient the first hand responder needs to triage the patients correctly because triaging patients will help the first hand responder know the most severely injured patient, who to take care of first, and know where to send each patient. 

What's Been Going on in March?

This month I have been working on mentorship, independent component 2, and some new research for research checks.
I went to mentorship the day after we got the big storm of the season. Due to the wind there wasn't enough snow to ski or snowboard on so they didn't open the ski area but they opened snow tubing, the restaurant and scenic rides. When I went up to mentorship, I just shoveled snow, slush, and ice for 3 hours. It wasn't very fun but it was a good work out. When I took my lunch break I ate lunch in the patrol room and there was a safety seminar going on with a patroller from another mountain. I listened in as I was eating my lunch. I found it interesting and I actually learned how to check if your helmet is effective or not. In order to make sure your helmet is effective, you have to push on either side with the same amount of force applied to each side. If you see cracks  that's how you know it is defective. I plan on working on my independend component this weekend.

 Riding up the lift to mentorship.

Stormy ride up to mentorship.

After the big storm at mentorship.

 Next, I've been working on my independent component 2. I finished up the third unit at the beginning of this month. Unit 3 was all about the skeletal system. When I was working on this unit I watched videos on the vertebral column, the thorax, and the skull. I also watched lectures on the basics of the skeletal system and the bones of the lower extremities and the foot. I finished up unit 3 by reading a bit in the Gray's Anatomy book which was on the skeletal system. I finished up the lecture videos and read up on the different parts of the bone.
Finally, this month I have been looking at a new book. This new book is called Nurse to Nurse Trauma Care by Donna Nayduch. This book covers everything about trauma patients and rehabilitating them, so it's a good book for my essential question. So far I have looked at the basics of trauma which includes Mechanism of Injury(MOI) and head injuries. I plan on reading this entire book. I also plan on doing extra research checks with my Outdoor Emergency Care book this weekend.

New book I have been using for research checks. 

Blog 17: Fourth Interview

Due Date:   Tuesday March 4, 2014

Content:

Post 20 open-ended questions for approval you want to ask an expert in the field of your senior project.  The focus of your questions should be on your many answers.

If you have already interviewed someone two times, you aren't allowed to interview that same person without House teacher approval.

The interview itself is not due till Friday April 11 to turnitin.com.   However, we want to give you as much time as possible, so we are asking you to complete the blog now. Remember that in addition to turning in the interview, you also need to turn in the verification sheet to your House teacher.

1. What is most important to rehabilitating a skier or snowboarder after a traumatic injury?
2. What is the best way to rehabilitate a patient after a traumatic skiing or snowboarding injury?
3. What experiences have you had with patients and traumatic injuries?
4.What steps did you do to ensure the patient was under the best care possible?
5.How would you help the patient with regaining their mental strength after a traumatic injury?

6. How would you help the patient with regaining their physical strength after a traumatic injury?
7. What experiences have you had with patients getting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD)?
8.  What is the best way to help a patient with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder(PTSD)?9.  What experiences have you had with any type of trauma(thoracic, abdominal, pelvic,etc.)?

10. What type of trauma is the hardest to deal with(thoracic, abdominal, pelvic,etc.) Why?

11.  What type of trauma is the easiest to deal with(thoracic, abdominal, pelvic,etc.) Why?

12. What experiences have you had with Traumatic Brain Injuries(TBI)?

13.What is the most important step in your assessment and management of the patient before you hand them off to a higher level of care?

14. What can you do to ensure that the patient rehabilitates on time?

15. What struggles have you had with helping a patient recover after a traumatic injury? How did you overcome them? 

16. Why do you think the Mechanism of Injury(MOI) or Nature of Illness(NOI) is important to know for the process of rehabilitating a patient? 

17. What is the best thing you can do when you hand off your patient to a higher level of care,to ensure that the patient gets the best treatment possible? Why?
18.What is the hardest step in your patient assessment and management? Why?
19. What is the most important thing to know about trauma or trauma patients? Why?
20. Out of the trauma calls you have been on, which one sticks out the most? Why?

Fun at Mentorship

This month I went to mentorship because we got some snow, finally! During my mentorship I helped put up a sight seeing rope, so I got to practice my clove hitch knot. I picked up obstacles like rocks and pinecones off the bunny hill. There was an avalanche seminar that I went too. I sat through the PowerPoint on avalanches. During this seminar I learned some cool stuff on avalanches and how to prevent them and how to be smart around avalanche danger areas. After the avalanche seminar, I went back out and skied around and picked up more obstacles and made sure all of our rope lines were staying up properly.

When I went to my mentorship this month, I was sitting in the lodge waiting for my lunch and a National Ski Patroller, Cash Murphy of the Far West Division, came up to me as I was sitting down and introduced himself and started talking to me. He said that he saw my vest and how it said Junior Ski Patrol and wanted to nominate me for the Outstanding Young Patroller of the Year award and asked me who he should talk to. I thought this was very cool because recently I was sent my registration patrol card and they sent me a patrol magazine in the mail and I was reading it and saw an article on a Outstanding Young Patroller of the Year and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. He also invited me to sit in on the avalanche seminar that was going to take place soon. 

The Ski Patrol magazine I was sent in the mail after I got my Ski Patrol Associates card. 

The article in the Ski Patrol magazine on the National Outstanding Award Winners. 

Article on the Outstanding Young Patroller of the Year, that I was nominated for by Cash Murphy.

Also, this month I started my second independent component of taking an online anatomy class. So far I have just been working on finishing up Unit 1 of the class. Unit 1 focuses on the basics of anatomy and understanding the basics of the body.

Blog 16: Advisory Meeting #2

Content:

Just like you did for answer 1 and the objectives for Purther's textbook work for answer 2 post:

EQ: 

What is most important to rehabilitating a skier or snowboarder after a traumatic injury?

Answer #2 (Write in a complete sentence like a thesis statement): 

In order to rehabilitate a patient after a traumatic skiing or snowboarding injury the first hand responder needs to make sure they know the Mechanism of Injury(MOI) or the Nature of Illness(NOI).

3 details to support the answer (a detail is a fact and an example):

1. If you don't know the MOI or NOI then you can't paint a clear picture of what actually happened. For example, if someone was to come flying down a ski run and hit a tree at a speed of 50 miles per hour and they fractured their femur, you would want to figure out the MOI. The MOI in this case would be the skier hitting the tree at a speed of 50 miles per hour. Once you know this you'll have a better understanding of what caused the patient to be in the position that they are currently in. 

2. Knowing the MOI or NOI can help you with your handoff report when you hand off the patient to a higher level of care. You'll be able to give the higher level of care a better picture so they can be better prepared for what they're dealing with. For example, if there was a skier that was in the terrain park and they hit their head against one of the rails and they weren't wearing a helmet, the MOI would be hitting their head against the rail. If you didn't know this because say they were laying 30 feet from the rail, you wouldn't be able to tell the higher level of care what exactly happened and so they couldn't understand the injury in depth. 

3. If you don't know the MOI then you might not see other serious injuries if the patient has multiple injuries. For example, say a skier hit a tree at 50 miles per hour and they had an obvious femur fracture but because they hit the tree they have an internal organ damage. You might not have realized the internal organ damage due to the distracting injury(femur fracture), but if you knew the MOI then you would think "wow that is a serious MOI, there might be more than just the femur fracture." 

The research source (s) to support your details and answer

• My third interview with Kelly Wolff helped me support my answer because she gave me the insight of how important knowing the MOI or NOI as one of the key factors in a traumatic injury really is.
• My first independent component, taking the Outdoor Emergency Care class with Trevor Samorajski helped me come up with this answer because he put a lot of emphasis on Mechanism of Injuries and Nature of Illnesses. 
• The Outdoor Emergency Care: 5th Edition book by  Deborah A. Endly, David H. Johe and Edward C. McNamara helped me come up with this answer because it talked a lot about trauma injuries and making sure you know the MOI or NOI.
• Trauma Care : Initial Assessment and Management in the Emergency Department by Elaine Cole helped me with this answer because she talked about MOIs in car accidents and different trauma accidents(not on a ski hill), but it still put it into perspective for me.

Concluding Sentence:
In order to rehabilitate a patient after a traumatic skiing or snowboarding injury you need to make sure you know the Mechanism of Injury(MOI) or the Nature of Illness(NOI) because you can't paint a clear picture of what actually happened without knowing the MOI or NOI,  knowing the MOI or NOI can help you with your handoff report when you hand off the patient to a higher level of care, and you might not see other serious injuries if the patient has multiple injuries if you don't know the MOI or NOI. 

Blog 15: Independent Component 2 Approval

Due Date:  Thursday, 2/13 by 8AM

Content:

Please review the component contract at page 12 of the senior project packet.   The independent component 2 is an opportunity for you to add a dimension of creativity and/or an additional outlet for research.  The goal of the component is for you to explore your answers in more depth.  On Friday April 25, 2014, you will be turning in the following to your blog to prove completion of this component:

·       Log of hours on an digital spreadsheet (with total number of hours included)
·       Evidence of the 30 hours of work (e.g. transcript, essays, tests, art work, photographs) as digital artifacts
·       LIA
 The senior team expects that your log will be on the right hand side of your blog with your WB, independent component log 1 and mentorship log.   In addition to this,  we expect that you will be able to prove the total 30 hours of work by submitting evidence to the blog by the due date.  For this blog post and approval, please answer the following questions.

1.  Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

For the 30 hours, I plan on taking an online class for independent component 2. I plan on taking an anatomy class because it will support one of my answers to my essential question, which is "In order to rehabilitate a patient after a traumatic skiing or snowboarding injury you need to make sure you know the human body well." The reason I have this as one of my working answers is because if you don't know the body then you won't know how or where to asses the body yet alone document it. Here is a link to the class I will be taking: http://www.saylor.org/courses/bio302/

2.  Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

I will screenshot tests/quizzes if there are any. Also I will take notes in a notebook and upload pictures to my blog and/or turn in my notebook when I'm done. I will also take a screenshot of the class as I go and a screenshot of the final exam and my score to show as evidence. 

3.  And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

This class will help me explore my topic more in depth because although I took the Outdoor Emergency Care class for my first independent component, they really didn't cover anatomy as much as I thought they would. Taking this anatomy class will help me with the assessment of patients because I will know the body more, especially the vital organs. The vital organs are hard to remember so this class will help me get a better understanding of how the body works. Understanding how the body works will help me with assessments of patients because I will have a better idea of what might be wrong with the patient if it isn't obvious already.  

4.  Post a log on the right hand side of your blog near your other logs and call it the independent component 2 log.

Look at blog.

Your answers to the questions should be supported with details and examples for the senior team to understand what you plan to do.   Once we review your Blog Post 15, your house teacher will discuss with you the approval of your plan.  If it is approved, please start working on it.  If it is not approved, your house teacher will explain why.  It is your job to address the concerns so you can get your component approved.

Blog 14: Independent Component 1

Content:  

• Literal
• (a) Statement saying: “I, student name, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”
• I, Jackie Boyd, affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.
  (b) Cite your source regarding who or what article or book helped you complete the independent component
• For my independent component, I took an Outdoor Emergency Care Class with an instructor by the name of Trevor Samorajski. He helped me out a lot by being the teacher of the class and helping me study for the final. Also, the book Outdoor Emergency Care: 5th Edition by Edward C. McNamara, David H. Johe, and Deborah A. Endly helped me out a lot because without it I wouldn't have been able to follow along in the class and read the assigned sections for homework and study for the class and the final.
  (c) Provide a digital spreadsheet (aka log of the 30 hours).   Post it next to your mentorship log.
• Look at blog under Mentorship. Its called Independent Component 1 Mentorship Log
• (d) Explanation of what you completed.    
• During the Outdoor Emergency Care class, I read a book that was over 1,000 pages to help me grasp the concepts of the class. Each Sunday from June to October, I went to class up in Wrightwood for 8 hours where my instructor Trevor Samorajski taught the class several chapters from the Outdoor Emergency Care: 5th Edition book. During these lectures I followed along in my book and took notes on things that weren't clear or weren't in the chapter that I thought would be useful. After the lectures there were certain skills from each chapter that we needed to know and practice, so trevor demonstrated the skills and then we practiced as a class. Outside of class on my own time, I read the assigned chapters for the following week, took notes on the chapters, wrote down all of the vocabulary words/acronyms/mnemonic from the book in my notebook. During my homework time if I had any questions I would be sure to remember them for the next class so I could ask Trevor. On the very last day of class we had two tests that determined if you passed or failed the class and got your Outdoor Emergency Care Technician certification card. The first test we took was a 100 multiple choice test. After we completed this we had another test where we were tested on several skills. We were tested on running 2 scenarios where the instructor read us a case presentation and we had to figure out what to do. Then we were tested on 5 quick skills which were helmet removal, boot removal, splinting a femur fracture, working with oxygen masks, and splinting in general. In order to get your certification card you had to pass the 100 multiple choice test with at least a 70 and pass all of the skills. I passed the class and received my certification card. 
• INTERPRETIVE 
  Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.   Provide evidence (photos, transcript, art work, videos, etc) of the 30 hours of work.  
  



This is my Outdoor Emergency Care Technician card that came in the mail after I passed the two tests on the last day of the OEC class. 

• The most significant part of my component was receiving the certification card. After completing this 150 hour class and seeing that certification card in my hand showed me how hard I actually worked for it. This is also significant because when you are an Outdoor Emergency Care Technician you can start patrolling, assuming you are 18 and pass all of your on the hill tests like tying knots and taking someone down in a toboggan. Another significant part of my component was actually participating in the class. Even though this class was super long every Sunday, I actually learned a lot of valuable information that will not only help me with ski patrolling but also with my major in college which is nursing. Every Sunday I was in class for 8 hours learning medical terms, procedures, and skills to help me get those 30 hours(which I exceeded) to complete my first independent component.  

This is a picture of some of the notes I took in my OEC class. 

These are vocabulary words that I wrote down throughout each chapter as I sat down and read the OEC book at home. 

Notes that I took in my OEC class as Trevor lectured.

More vocabulary words.

More notes I took in class on the important acronyms that are now drilled into my brain. 

More notes on important acronyms in the OEC world.

More vocabulary words. 

More notes that I took in class.

Another significant part to my independent component was participating in the class and taking notes on everything that I thought was important, which trust me was A LOT! Taking notes on all the important parts was crucial in order to pass the exams at the end of the class. This helped me pass the class because I went back into my notebook and made notecards on the most important parts so I could study for the end of the class exams. 

• APPLIED
  How did the component help you understand the foundation of your topic better?  Please include specific examples to illustrate how it helped. 
• This component helped me understand the foundation of my topic more because without the medical background you're just an average skier, you need the medical background in order to patrol.. For example, before I took the OEC class I thought I was all cool and everything because I was on ski patrol but the only medical background I had was CPR and basic first aid. I thought I could do anything within the scope of ski patrol, but now that I have completed the OEC class I realized that I was completely wrong and I know for a fact that I couldn't run every call without the help of my mentor and/or a fellow patroller even with my OEC certification because I know I still have a lot to learn and need to put my skills to the test in a real scenario. Also, the component showed me how hard it is to become certified and it isn't something you just miraculously earn, you have to work hard for it. For example, when I was taking the OEC class I really didn't see how much time I spent working on things in the class and even how much time I spent in the class but now as I look back on it I realized that I spent countless hours working for that certification card. In order to become a ski patroller you need to be OEC certified, ski patrol isn't just a title you earn! Understanding the medical side of patrol will help build the foundation because you run more calls than anything else in the ski patrol life. For example, even before I took the OEC class I knew patrollers spent their days running numerous calls, but I never knew the extent of it. When I was in class, Trevor told me stories of all the calls they run each day at Mountain High. He told me that as soon as you get done with one call you have another one waiting for you, call after call, you don't even have time to document all the calls until the end of the day, and even then you might be staying after the mountain closes to finish all of your paperwork and look it over. Now that I'm OEC certified and doing mentorship hours I know all the calls that we get. We even get calls for tubing park accidents. One day at my mentorship we got a girl in the patrol room that had flipped over tubing and hit her head and leg. Patrollers really do spend the majority of their time running medical calls and the spare time they have they use on making sure the runs are intact for skiers and snowboarders to use and have fun on.