Trail Guide to the Body Empowers Albanian Students to Master Palpation
One recent Saturday morning, a small group of physical therapy students from the Medical University in Tirana, Albania, shuffled into a new training center to begin learning how to locate bony landmarks and muscles of the human body. This in itself might seem like no big deal โ lessons like these are de rigueur in almost every physical therapy program within the U.S.
โIn this part of the world, students in the university medical education system have access to very few medical education textbooks, based on practical application. Many physical therapy students graduate with limited clinical practical education,โ says Kathy Scott, PT, DPT, an American physical therapy instructor working for the ABC Health Foundation, a not-for-profit organization striving to improve medical education, and improve patient care in Albania.
As Kathy tells it, the current medical education situation is extremely challenging for the students.
So, when Kathy noticed her students excitedly poring over her single copy of Trail Guide to the Body the ideas exploded. She thought a class based on the textbookโs easy-to-understand, hands-on lessons could be a real game changer for her studentsโ palpation skill development.
Kathy shared her idea with a friend, who then generously purchased eight new copies of Trail Guide to the Body for the universityโs new training center, a place where the hands-on palpation classes could quickly take root and grow.
Getting an important thing going.
Grateful for the textbookโs engaging and easy-to-follow palpation instructions, Kathy emailed senior manager Kate D’Italia at Books of Discovery, Trail Guide to theBodyโs publisher, expressing her thanks for a textbook that will facilitate the proper training and skill development of Albanian medical and physical therapy students.
โWhen you hear stories like this one, you realize that as a publisher we really have the power to make a difference to students all over the world. This is what motivates us here at Books of Discovery,โ says Kate.
Books of Discovery knew that what Kathy was trying to accomplish was important. Kate and her team immediately went to work putting together boxes of additional Trail Guide to the Body textbooks, workbooks, videos, poster sets, flash cards, and other learning resources for a donation to Kathyโs new class.
Not just memorizing. Learning that now includes โtouching.’
Demand for the class grew suddenly. โWe had 27 applications for 15 spots in our first class, filled with first year to master’s students and doctors. Thereโs even one therapist who rides the bus two hours each way to attend the class each Saturday,โ explains Kathy. โAnd now, we have an abundance of textbooks for students to use and learn โtouch.โ โ
The results of using Trail Guide to the Body in the palpation class have been, in Kathyโs eyes, phenomenal.
โI wish you could see the students start to โthinkโ and try to figure out โfunctionโ using their own bodies and the new textbooks,โ Kathy wrote in a recent email to Kate. โThey arenโt just memorizing how to palpate muscles and bony structures, theyโre visualizing it with the text and then actually practicing it.โ
Kathy ends her email to Kate with an added note:
โI wish you all could fully understand how special Books of Discoveryโs gift is and will continue to be for years to come. Your company will be part of the โchangeโ for medical education in this country!โ
