May 13th- Day 8

Shoulders, knees, and hips! That is what my day consisted of in the Doctor's office today! Dr. Hennig and I saw a lot of patients with discomfort in their knees, most of them able to attribute the pain to arthritis in the knee. I was able to observe Dr. Hennig for multiple injections of the knee and learned a few more special tests to check stability as well as mobility of the leg. We also saw a good amount of patients with shoulder issues today that ranged from rotator cuff tears, bicep tendonitis, and even an AC joint separation. It was really cool looking at the AC joint separation on the X-rays which was very obvious but I also being able to look at the patient and see the raised bump from the joint separation.

We spoke to the patient about several treatment options. The surgery would consist of making a tunnel through the clavical and bringing an allograft through the tunnel and down to to anchor the bone. The patient wanted to put off surgery unless absolutely needed so today Dr. Hennig gave him a cortisone injection into the shoulder to relieve some of the pain created by the injury.

We also saw two patient with hip and thigh pain. The first patient was having a follow up visit after having 3 screws put in his left femoral head after fracturing it. The patient was having pain because the screws had backed out of the bone some as the bone settled and the gap created by the fracture had closed. The patient has some bursitis caused by the heads of the screws rubbing on the bursa sac that separates the hip from the IT Band. The last patient I saw today was complaining of hamstring pain and it was determined that the patient had sustained a tear in his hamstring. With the patients permission, Dr. Hennig allowed me to perform palpations on the patient's leg and one could easily feel an enlargement created by a bundle of hamstring muscle on the patients leg. Overall it was yet another educational day and I cannot wait to return tomorrow where I will be able to sit in on a few surgeries!