Jessica Wagner:
Hi everyone. It's Jessica Wagner, marketing and communications coordinator here at Shriners Children's Ohio and today I'm really excited to introduce to you physical therapist Kim Tran. She may look familiar to you. You may have seen her in some of our videos featuring Avery in our occupational and physical therapy gym. So we now are going to take this opportunity to get to know her a little bit better.
Our therapy team is really important to all of our patients, particularly those with burns. In the video you see Avery, she's looking like she's having a lot of fun and she is, but there's a reason behind that. So Kim, let me turn it over to you and explain a little bit of what's going on inside the gym.
Kim Tran:
Sure. So burn patients tend to have difficulty moving and the scar tissue wants to limit how much they move. So with kids especially, we try to incorporate play as much as possible. So if we have to stretch their arms up, we'll blow bubbles and make them pop the bubbles up in the air. Or if they're working on using their hand to grasp things, we will get the little toys out and move Hot Wheel cars all over the place to try to strengthen their hands as well. So it just makes it more fun. It's not always fun, but it does make it more fun.
Jessica Wagner:
That's great and there's the play aspect, but there's also the continuum of care that you guys provide. So you will stay with a patient like Avery or other patients throughout their growing years, is that right?
Kim Tran:
Correct. We see our patients up to 21 years old. Because the scar tissue tends to feel tight and not be as stretchy as regular skin, as our patients go through growth spurts, they have to come back and they may have complaints that maybe their elbow isn't straightening as much as possible 'cause they just grew two inches. So they will come back for reconstructive procedures and we will teach them again how to take care of it and how to make the most out of that procedure so they move the best that they can.
Jessica Wagner:
I think it's so wonderful that as part of your job, you get to stay with these kids as they grow and develop and turn into young adults. Tell me a little bit, what is the favorite part of your job or what you find most rewarding?
Kim Tran:
Easily it's knowing that we can get these patients through one of the most traumatic things that will ever happen in their life and get them returning to what they were doing pre burn. Whether it was going to school, crawling. Anything that they were doing before we get them back to where they were.
So for me, the most rewarding thing is knowing that a patient has been on bedrest for five days and now I'm getting them out of bed and they're going to walk 50 feet. So there's so many milestones on a day to day basis and it makes it very rewarding.
Jessica Wagner:
Yeah. That plays into our current campaign, the Watch Me Campaign of when our patients do reach these milestones and they say, "Watch me do this," and we all celebrate those important milestones in their recovery.
Well Kim Tran, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to talk with me. I'm sure I'll be seeing you again in the gym because it's a really fun place for our kids to build up some of their muscle and recovery and stay loose and lumber and continue on that path. So Kim Tran, thank you so much. For you guys watching you can always get more information about Shriners Children's Ohio on our website, shrinersohio.org. Kim, thank you so much.
Kim Tran:
Thanks for having me.
