It’s almost surreal to be almost three weeks into my seventh trimester. It’s easy to feel the charged atmosphere, fueled by a shared realization that we, as a class, are together seeing that glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Even the classes are reflecting that reality. Every class I’m in this trimester seems to be a sort of “tapered” experience of our education thus far. What I mean by that is our professors, at this point, don’t need to pump us full of scientific minutiae, they merely have to hone our knowledge and lend perspective. One of the most beautifully constructed classes this trimester is Functional Rehab II.

And, just because…a picture of my nephew’s first birthday party a week and a half ago

Dr. Jim Jenkins has truly created a fantastic rehab class that ties together every DC-centric class with succinct brilliance. This class combines the identification of aberrant motor patterns, how they tie into functional movement, and how to re-train those motor patterns combined with precise use of the chiropractic adjustment to restore optimal function. I view it as a capstone class and a truly phenomenal one at that. It’s not just the material taught in class that magnifies the not-so-distant light down the tunnel though, it’s also the greater amount of time spent in an exam room, with “simulated patients” (actors that we can practice our doctoring on).

Two to three days a week we don our white coats and interact with a sim-patient. There’s usually a specific diagnosis we should arrive at via our powers of deduction and exam proficiency. The encounter generally includes a complete history, a physical exam, a report of findings, and a treatment plan with all the appropriate paperwork. It is a class geared towards coaxing out easily remedied mistakes and to polish our clinical reasoning as well as patient interaction before we start in the clinic next trimester. It’s a crucial class, especially in light of the pace this trimester is already progressing.