Case Notes:
Donnie Anderton
(Physiotherapy, India )

On 9pm Sunday 6th April I began a 12 hour flight that would start the beginning of an eight week physiotherapy placement. I decided to complete this placement in the second year of my course to gain extra experience and add another string to my physio bow. As an undergraduate of Manchester Metropolitan University I am half way through my course. I hoped that this placement will enhance my skills and knowledge and put me in a better position for my final year.

My first day was spent walking around Trivandrum to get our bearings. Starting at the zoo and finishing at a 2000 year old Hindu temple. The orientation was great and was a good sightseeing tour too. Sally and Antony (Work the World staff who took us on the tour) are both mines of information. They would tell us the best places to buy washing powder to where to get stamps and train tickets. During the trip we stopped off for chai at the Indian coffee house which resembles a helter-skelter more than a Starbucks.

The Work the World house is clean, spacious, and has many fans to help keep you cool. The meals that the house’s chef (Mary) cooks are ample and delicious, especially her Chicken biryani. Sally the Accommodation Manager was always available to give advice on train times, directions and ideas for the weekend.

Ananthapuri hospital is about a ten minute rickshaw journey from the Work the World house. This private hospital has some of the region’s leading neuro and heart surgeons. The first day of my placement, I arrived at 9am with Antony and I was introduced to the chairman of the hospital with a namaste (A formal and respectful Indian hello). I was then shown the many departments of the hospital including stroke, neuro and cardio wards, intensive care units and outpatient departments. Veena Nayak is the head physio at the hospital. I had a chat with her and discussed what I wanted to receive from the placement and what she was able to offer. She was very welcoming and had herself worked in the UK for a few years. I decided to spend two weeks on intensive care to practice my respiratory skills, then three week on neuro rehab and my remaining three weeks in outpatients which were new to me. I was also told that I would have the option of seeing some surgery if I wished. By the end of my placement and I’d seen a quadruple heart bypass surgery which was amazing.

The experience has strengthened the clinical skills I already possessed and I worked with several children with cerebral palsy. The children come in daily for treatment as do many of the patients, so you get to see daily progression and build rapport with them. I've treated many patients who had stroke RTA's with passive or assisted active movements, used the full range of electrotherapy and also managed to spend some time with the speech and language therapist and occupational therapists.

The weekends give a great chance to travel all over south India. The beautiful backwaters are magnificent and well worth a 24hour journey on one of the rice barges. We journeyed through tiny fishing villages and saw how rural India still lives. I also took some time and visited Periyar tiger reserve in Tamil Nadu. Whilst there I spent a day trekking and bamboo rafting in the reserve. I saw a huge herd of wild bison amble through the trees with calf in tow and a few wild boar but unfortunately no tigers. We were told that there are at least 40 or so lurking in the jungle, so you might be luckier!

I’d never seen any Bollywood films before travelling to India and being the largest film industry in the world I soon realised that I had been missing out. I borrowed Om Shanti Om, the latest blockbuster, from one of the physios at work and become an immediate convert. Their camp, over the top and the colours are bright beyond belief.

All in all this trip gave me the chance to meet and work with some amazing people, it strengthened my clinical skills and reasoning, and gave me hands on experience to some pathologies and treatments I might never have seen in the UK. All this and I got an amazing tan too.