interesting patients
Working here is like working in inpatient rehab in a state/county hospital. There are plenty of a variety of chronic pain or orthopedic injury/surgery situations. But there’s also things you might not see if you worked at Kaiser, but that you could most likely see if you worked at Highland Hospital, Zuckerburg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center or Fairmont Rehab/Psych Hospital.
Here are some thus far:
- stab wounds (that occurred in prison by anther resident)–one of my patients said he stabbed 3 people to death while in prison–but he was defending transgender persons, so guess that makes it ok?
- gun shot wound–incurring a fracture in the shoulder (that occurred in prison by another resident)–I know! I mean, how does that even happen?
- subsequent blindness and mobility issues due to uncontrolled Type II diabetes (only in his early 30’s, ugh)
- sudden loss of limb function due to cancer in the spine–evaluate to provide upper body exercises to work on
- young lifer resident on a hunger strike because he felt he was wronged by custody–evaluate for loss of mobility concerns (my assessment: when one stops eating, they become weak and low energy–he tested strong in his muscles, but required a walker to walk–recommendation: start eating and exercising again so you can take agency over what happens to you).
Super interesting after being in private practice for 16 years and definitely keeps me Googling specific interesting surgeries or diagnoses. So if you’ve ever worked in county or state hospitals you would have a great background for this environment.
This is another list that I’m sure is to be continued…….
*just to note, I’ll be leaving out the name of the institution that I work at. It’s a state prison for reference. Images are not from the prison as no devices are allowed in.
Prison PT 
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