MDT Shisanyama

MDT drama or no drama We were warned from three groups previously about MDT drama. I never quite understood it because surely, we all have the same goal, and ultimately that it to help this community, and working together would only benefit them as well as teach us about other professions? But that hasn’t been the case with the previous groups; they dubbed it “MDT drama”. As the Awesome Foursome group, we decided that we would keep an open mind in meeting the speeches and audio’s. We did, and so far working as an MDT has been fun and exciting. On Wednesday, we were at Clermont clinic and the clinic became busy within a matter of minutes. 4 children arriving at the same time as well as another two adult clients. This gave us a little taste of the unpredictability of community- Meghan and Jani only had 2 clients booked, yet the rest were walk ins. What an incredible afternoon it was, we were faced with conditions that we didn’t know because the children had not been diagnosed, and I sat with Jani, the physio, Ntobeko, and Wrenna, the speeches and myself and we all did therapy with this child. We all brainstormed together showing which aspects we knew the best about and even Jani said it was so valuable to have the input from two other professions which created optimal holistic treatment. This was great and I love how we all came together for the benefit of a client. Of course there is always going to be miscommunication or personality clashes, but this does not only happy inter disciplinary but within disciplines too, we as professionals in the making need to learn how to handle or sorts of people and personalities and learn to work together for the benefit of the community. So far (even though it has only been a week), we have managed to work well together. It has been fun and interesting learning about different professions, seeing some of the treatment interventions that they do and incorporating all holistic treatment into our plans. This week we also got to experience the real community with the MDT. The speeches have been there before so they decided to introduce us to Shisanyama- best ever! They took us to a dodgy little spot in Clermont hidden amongst the run down shops surrounding it. We entered and each contributed R20, we picked a huge steak and boerewors which they spiced and placed on the braai for us. We cut up the meat and placed it into separate packets and bought fresh fresh white bread and ate our shisanyama and white bread. It was absolutely delicious and a morale building activity for the MDT. I really enjoy the speeches and they seem to be as motivated as we are which is so helpful!