Blake Weaver – Physical Therapy Internship

Hello, my name is Blake Weaver. I am a senior at Garden Spot High School and currently interning at NovaCare Rehabilitation in New Holland, Pennsylvania. Through this remarkable experience, I now know that Physical Therapy Is the career that I would like to delve into. Every day I walk in with high hopes and an open mind, ready to learn from professionals in my ideal career. Remarkably every day I get met with a wonderful group of therapists that are eager to do their job and teach me about any question that I may have. I learned so much from this group in the eight weeks that I have been there so far, and I am excited to see what I will learn in the coming weeks.

I decided at the beginning of this year that I wanted to have a career in the healthcare industry as I love helping people, and I took my school’s anatomy and physiology course and loved the information and learning more about the human body. With this information, I decided that nursing would be a good career for me and decided to research the idea more thoroughly. Through this careful examination, I realized that nursing just was not going to be what I was looking for. In the meantime, I was interning at NovaCare and genuinely had fun learning and helping there. Along with doing my own research and looking at colleges, I decided, I just have fun there and enjoy all the different people that walk into that door, and I love learning how their injuries get fixed and what the methodology is for giving them their specific workouts. Another big reason that I enjoy my time there is because of all the different therapists there, I have known one of them for most of my life, but the others took some time to get used to them and their style. But the differences that each of them has complements the others. And makes the entire place a great environment to intern and do physical therapy.

On a typical day, I will arrive at the facility and talk with different patients that I have grown fond of over time, Next, I will start to sanitize all the exercise equipment that is there. Such as exercise bikes, hand bikes, a treadmill, ankle weights etc. After sanitizing all the equipment, I will typically head over to the front reception desk and start to fill all the previous patients’ charts to help the wonderful ladies in the front and make their job just a little easier. After I finish with that, I will make rounds around the room and talk with different patients to help them feel welcomed, I can typically talk to about anyone, and I have found that the ones that I talk to more often open more and really give a friendly conversation. I also help any therapist out with whatever they may need; if they need more time with one patient I will be there to help guide and aid the patient in their workout. I will also get stim machines, hot packs, and give them to whoever requests them. I will also go to the waiting room and call back patients that we are ready for. When the heat and stim are done, I can take off the pads and the heat and put them back where they belong, then I can begin to clean the table and the room that the patient was in. As the patients leave the new patients come back and start their exercises for the day, and I will talk with them as they are just getting in, greeting them, and making them feel welcomed.

Overall, this internship is a valuable resource that will help aid me in my future college path. The people here are incredible and extremely helpful and insightful. Through this experience, I have gained valuable information on how a Physical therapists office works, the education for Physical therapists, the reasoning behind why they do certain workouts, and more depth into the human anatomy. Through this internship I have also learned more about how to talk to people and be more sociable, I have learned how to start conversation and most importantly how to cut conversation off so that the patients can focus on their workouts. I am now confident in saying that because of this wonderful experience that this is the career that I would want to pursue. Thank you to NovaCare rehabilitation for making this amazing experience possible.