start of clinical placement..

Hi everyone,

So its been a while..
Last week I started my clinical placement at The Champion Center with a dietition, and we had a couple of children one who had Down Syndrome and another with a rare genetic disease that I can't tell you here due to privacy and confidentiality issues.
The placement won't just be random.. I am expected keep records in a diary about what goes on during sessions.. I have a clinical supervisor, Dr. Patricia Champion, and an academic supervisor, Dr. Kathleen Liberty, whom I will be periodically meeting to talk and discuss the things that happen. Also am expected to write reports and research papers on the placements as well as being part of the interventional teams in at least three cases.

It sounds really exciting... the only two problems that I am facing is that I will need to buy formal clothes to go with the nature of the work.. also transportation as the center is next to Burwood Hospital outside Christchurch city, and in order to get there I had to take 3 buses, crossing roads and walking under the rain. I left home at 7 am, and got there at 9.15 !! And I look filthy and wet when i got there!! Something you really need to avoid on your first day at work!!
Thats just silly... I need to work this thing out...

So yeah... its getting even more interesting now... and I must say, the kind of support that the teaching staff and my supervisors are providing is really overwhelming... they are as sweet as it gets.. couldn't ask for better, especially after the earthquake and the difficult times we had.

I will be back in few days to write about the recent events after the death of OBL.. till then, take care :)

The Champion Centre, and meeting Dr. Champion!

Hi everybody...

Have you ever met someone you never thought you could meet in real life, and would only watch on an episode of Oprah, 60 Minutes or 20/20?

Well... Today, I met with a lady of that quality... A lady I thought I might only get a chance to see on Oprah or in a news paper... Let alone meeting her in person, and sitting on the same table for two hours. Whats more thrilling is that she actually came there to discuss my future!
OK, maybe not many of you people know her... Her name is Dr. Patricia Champion, the founder of Champion Centre. Its the largest Early Intervention service provider in New Zealand where children who are at risk of developing learning disabilities or who struggle with delayed learning are regularly seen by a multidisciplinary team of professionals.

http://www.championcentre.org.nz/phppages/mission.php

“Every child is a unique individual with individual needs. I believe in all children having the right to develop their potential, whatever that might be.”

Some 25 years ago, Dr Patricia Champion initiated her work with children with Down syndrome. Over the years, with a dedicated team of staff, this grew to become the unique Centre it now is. Beginning with just 7 children in its first year, the Centre has grown steadily, expanded its services, and attracted more and more dedicated, highly qualified personnel. Over the years it has helped more than one thousand children.

So... she came in our class today, which is really a very small class with only 5 students, and is held one of the churches because of the damage that has affected many buildings around the campus... so she came in, and introduced her self as "Patricia". She sat down with us, and started chatting like any regular person would. We didn't know who she was until our tutor, Prof. Kathleen Liberty who is also a leading icon in the field of Early Intervention in NZ, asked "Patricia" to introduce her self to us, and tell us about her background. And honest to God, it was a jaw opener!

This lady has really truely made a change in her life.... she is not like one of those brats we so alot around who claim to want to make a change in the world, and later would go ask her daddy for some money to buy a new handbag when she has got a hundred of them! No no no... Not only she played part in why people in Christchurch don't end anymore getting locked-up for the rest of their lives in a cell at what was called a "Mental Centre" in Templeton just because they were born with some kind of disability... But also she introduced the most hollistic approach in dealing with children with disabilities to provide them and their families with the information and support they need to reduce the impact of the disability, and to facilitate the inclusion of the child in the society and mainstream education system.

She told me about how is going to attach me to attend sessions at the Centre which provides services to children from 0-5 from different backgrounds and forms of disabilities. I will also be attached to services provided at the hospital to children from 0-12, with or without disability, who have medical problems. In both cases, I will be watching their team work in the presence of a dietetian/nutritionist.

I am really excited to have met Dr. Champion, and I hope things work out in the best direction... Because I am finally in a place where I can see not just the interventions and services provided, but also results... real results... and they seem to be wonderful.

Regards,

Burair

Opening..

Dear friends,

Welcome to my new blog. As some may know, I used to have another blog in which I would post a random variety of stuff... It was so random because I rarely took it seriously. I would deliberately post lame jokes (few weren't really lame), reciepies, fake interviews.. Though, sometimes I would post one or two personal matters that were indirectly serious in their nature.
However, I decided to have a new blog... Something that could go with the new/updated/refreshed personality that comes with a dramatic experience that has completely changed someone's life. In addition, being a semi professional and a post graduate student makes me want a blog that I might want to share with not just either people I care or don't care about, but also people in my field who I may have the chance to meet in my professional life, and would like to keep in touch with in a casual way. Ofcourse there is facebook, but my facebook profile isn't pretty or sane enough :D
My twitter, again I never took that seriously with mostly containing jokes that I tried to write... Jokes that were more like topical and insider than being epics.. If that makes sense!

Anyways, its 2:32 AM here in Christchurch, New Zealand... And I should go to bed because I need to wake up and work on my assignment in statistics in the morning!

Good night, and God bless...