#thornlands

First week of my placement is over and I thought it could be good time to say couple words about the place I work in. Finncare is a nonprofitable Aged Care Facility designed for Finnish people which locates at Thornlands, near Brisbane. Finncare comprehends three smaller rather individual “bodies”. First one is a retirement community of Finlandia Villas, second is residential aged care facility of Finlandia Village and third is Home Support Services. 

I mainly work in aged care facility of Finlandia Village but will go and see what it’s like to work in Home Support Services at some point. In Finlandia Village there is total of 45 places, included 15 places for residents with memory disorders. Home Support Service cares for approximately 500 individual clients all around Brisbane.

Last week I was familiarizing to the organization and their policies and tried to get to know with residents and staff. Instead of having permanent physiotherapist in Finncare’s staff they use services of private physiotherapy companies. First week I worked in cooperation with my supervisor who is a certified nurse/physio aid. I also spent couple hours observing and working with local physio (third-party) who was doing assessment for new resident. In the future I’ll probably start working more on my own when I’m familiar enough with residents and procedures of Finncare.

My impressions of Finncare after first week have been only positive. Although I’ve been running from place to place learning things I need to learn (obviously) I think I will get into the system pretty quick and start making impact with my presence.

G’day mates! I’m Tarmo and I’m third-year physiotherapy student from Karelia University of Applied Sciences, Finland. This blog is about my internship in Finnish Rest Home in Thornlands, Australia. Aside of that I also write and post pictures about my life “down under”.

So, the first post of this blog basically tells you how I ended up choosing to do my clinical placement in Australia.  Of course, this all started with an idea to go abroad. Me and my two classmates thought that it would be cool to make a bit longer trip for an internship and Australia seemed to be perfect choice: our school already had an internship contract and our physio students have done internships there earlier.  What could possibly go wrong?

First time we tried to contact Finncare in Thornlands, no one answered our email. We waited couple months and no replies ever came to our emails.  One classmate changed plans and decided to go Brazil for internship. She was successful and she’s currently enjoying her time there. I started my bombardment of emails towards the companies which were the most accurate hits in Google for searches like “physiotherapy AND Brisbane” or “Sydney” or “Melbourne”. After over 50 emails sent and fewer than 10 replies received there were no place for us in any of these companies. At this point my second classmate changed her mind and decided to make her 4th clinical placement in Finland.  I was still hoping for something.

Out of nowhere I got reply from Finncare after almost 3 months. They had some changes in their staff and new person was assigned to be responsible for the communication considering internships. The answer to the question was “yes” and so started my planning for the trip. In the end it didn’t take that much effort to plan my trip and stay in Australia. We wrote training agreement with my international coordinator and sent it back to be signed by their coordinator. After that I applied for scholarships, took couple vaccines for fun, booked transportation, applied for visa and did everything necessary considering any kind of bank, apartment, student allowance or insurance issues. That’s it. Done.

There was a little planned plot twist thou. I decided to delay my internship for two weeks because I intended to attend to ENPHE conference in Graz, Austria (of course before I bought any tickets).  Plan was to fly to Austria, attend conference and fly from Austria to Australia via Zürich and Hong Kong. The plan was great, execution flawless and here I am: In Australia.