Kinesio Taping - Maggie Sherwood and Claire McKeone

Greetings from the Warmer (but not by that much) state of South Carolina!

Recently, Claire McKeone and I were offered to take a Kinesio Taping Continuing Education Course at a student price (aka really cheap!!) through our Clinical Site at McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence, South Carolina. Although I am working in the outpatient facility and Claire in inpatient, we both felt this was a great opportunity to continue our education, and to make ourselves more marketable come graduation time. 

We both are interested in working in an outpatient setting after graduation, so this seemed like a great way to broaden our scope of knowledge on interventions to that patient population. I also thought that it would be useful, as the McLeod Outpatient facility utilizes Kinesio Taping on many of their patients. 

The course was 2 days long, Friday and Saturday, and equated to 16 units of CEUs (although we did not qualify for the credits, it was still worth it!).

After 2 days and lots of tape, Claire and I felt that we had a much better understanding of the principals of Kinesio Taping that the time constraints of the taping lab at school were not able to achieve (but the taping lab is what sparked our interest in the first place, so it is still a great foundational lab for all students to go through). We were both able to immediately think of patients to utilize the techniques on when we were done with the course. We even taped each other, as we are both runners, and were able to alleviate some or most of our pain to complete longer runs! 

After taking the course we both agreed that it was completely worth the time and money. We were encouraged, not only by the PTs in our clinical sites but by other young professionals, that taking Continuing Education Courses is much cheaper at student prices and can make you more marketable when it comes time to look for a job. We not only we encouraged by fellow PTs and CIs at our clinical sites to take courses, especially as students, but found that other classmates would love opportunities like this as well.  We would both highly recommend asking around future clinical sites to see if any continuing education courses are coming up that you might be interested in.

It was a wonderful experience and we both feel as though our clinical "toolboxes" have now gained a very useful addition.  We are both looking to take the next level course during CRIVB or the summer. This will allow us to sit for the exam and become certified. 

Attached are a few pictures we took throughout the course while we were having fun! We apologize for the tape, but they gave us the tan colored tape to use during the course so it did not turn out too well in the pictures!

Maggie Sherwood, SPT

Claire McKeone, SPT