Paul Szmal: And it's our Health Matters Signal with our friends from Finger Lakes Health. So first we'll bring in Kim Alacua. Kim, good morning. How are you?
Kim Ilaqua: Morning, Paul. How are you?
Paul Szmal: I'm doing well on this sunny day. How about yourself?
Kim Ilaqua: I'm doing great. Nice to see the sun shining today.
Paul Szmal: Oh yeah, we enjoy it while we can.
Kim Ilaqua: Absolutely. So, uh, what do we have going on?
Um, I have two updates. I wanted to, um, announce that Finger Lakes, we've opened a new primary care practice that's going to be starting to see patients on May 1st, and I'd like to welcome Greg Fex. He's a physician assistant, and he's going to be the provider at Finger Lakes Health Primary Care. This is located on the third floor of the medical office building adjacent to Geneva General Hospital. You can start calling now to schedule appointments with him at 315-787-5445, and he will be seeing patients starting on May 1st. This is just another example of our commitment to increase access to primary care in our region.
And the second thing is I'd like to give a shout out to both of our emergency departments at Geneva General Hospital and at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital. We continue to have the shortest wait times in the region for throughput. That is from when you're, um, registration until you're discharged. And our average wait times are also the shortest in the region to see a physician. It's 24 minutes at Geneva General and seven minutes at Soldiers and Sailors. So we're really, really proud of those times. So I just wanted to give a shout out to those teams.
Paul Szmal: Beautiful. How about introducing today's guest for us?
Kim Ilaqua: Yes. I'm very proud to introduce Josh Pritchard. Josh is an occupational therapist. He is at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital. He sees both inpatient and outpatient. Josh, good morning. How are you?
Josh Pritchard: Good. Good. How are you, Paul?
Paul Szmal: Doing good. Doing good.
First off, I always like to get a little background on people that come in. So how did you wind up becoming an occupational therapist?
Josh Pritchard: Well, um, it all started, uh, just with some family health concerns. Um, with my father, I actually had a stroke, um, and, uh, you know, going, taking him to his appointments for his physical and occupational therapy. I got talking to occupational therapists, uh, there, and I got interested in the career. Um, and then I found the opportunity here in the Finger Lakes at Keuka College, uh, where I went to school here. Um, so I'm very passionate about the, uh, career, um, and, uh, happy to be here today to talk with you.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. How long have you been working now within, uh, your, uh, Finger Lakes health system?
Josh Pritchard: Uh, I've been about nine years.
Paul Szmal: Wow. Yeah. So it's been a little while.
Josh Pritchard: Yeah, it has. Yep. Down at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial in, uh, Pena.
Paul Szmal: And I, you mentioned physical therapy, occupational therapy. We, we tend to think therapy is one thing, but it's really two distinctly different disciplines.
Josh Pritchard: Yeah. Well, there is a slight crossover maybe in the acute side, but in an outpatient setting, there's, there's many differences, um, where, you know, the occupational therapists, we tend to work on more, um, you know, function based. So making people independent with like bathing, dressing after a stroke, or if you've had a, like a brain injury, an orthopedic, uh, injury, we want to make sure that they're able to get back to what they want to do, like, you know, finding adaptive strategies, working on, um, getting, meeting their goals of getting independent again with whatever task that they have at hand. Because sometimes the way they used to do things may not be the way that they're going to do them in the future.
Paul Szmal: Exactly. Yes. A hundred percent. Uh, how many patients do you see normally a day?
Josh Pritchard: Uh, it can vary a little bit, but, um, on the swing bed unit, I see upstairs, the acute, I know that you talked a little bit, um, about this last week. Um, uh, we tend to see upwards of about 14 patients, uh, on the floor there. Um, and then in the outpatient setting, it can vary quite a bit, but usually, uh, around like five or five or six, um, every other day.
Paul Szmal: So you're doing a kind of a combination. You're working with people in the swing bed program who are in and out, and then you're working with outpatient care as well.
Josh Pritchard: Yeah. And the outpatient side is more of an orthopedic, uh, standpoint. So I work with hands, uh, like wrist fractures, boxers, fractures, um, carpal tunnel syndrome, stuff like that. Um, and then on the inpatient side, you know, you've got very sick individuals who've maybe have had a stroke, um, or, you know, just generalized weakness from like a long prolonged hospital stay. So we, I see a varying amount of people, uh, as soldiers there. So it's, it's a, it's a nice opportunity to really.
Paul Szmal: Kind of take me through your, if you can take me through your typical, typical day.
Josh Pritchard: Um, well, normally we start off, I would like to go up to the hospital if I can in the morning and work on people with their cares, um, you know, making sure that they're working on their dressing, their bathing and making sure they're independent or whatever, however far they need to be to kind of get home.
Paul Szmal: And, and by that, you mean the strategies and the techniques that, that you have worked with them. You're just trying to follow along and make sure that they're using these strategies and techniques and checking for signs of improvement, signs of potential trouble.
Josh Pritchard: Yes, absolutely. So, you know, compensatory techniques, you know, adaptive equipment, um, you know, sometimes you, you give them tools to help, help with that procedure and also strategies, you know, taking your time, um, you know, following.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that, cause that can be a problem and you can't do some things necessarily at the speed that you once did them before.
Josh Pritchard: Yes, exactly. Yep. So working on that.
Paul Szmal: And, and so what happens after, after that morning session with the folks?
Josh Pritchard: Um, typically then, uh, the physical therapist will come either later that morning or in the afternoon. Um, and then, you know, sometimes I'll come back and check with them to, uh, making sure that they, they're feeling comfortable and maybe another extra session if they, they're up for it. And that's kind of where that crossover between the physical and the occupational comes in.
Paul Szmal: Yep. Yep. So, uh, where I'm working on making sure that they're able to do their cares and all that to get home independently, the physical therapist is working on making sure that they have the strength and endurance to, to ambulate, to, to make it to, you know, to their car, um, to get around their home safely, finding devices such as walkers, canes, um, you know, even crutches if they need them, uh, to, to make sure that they're, they're mobile.
We're talking with Josh Pritchett, an occupational therapist with Finger Lake South down at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital. So it sounds like you're dealing with a wide variety of things on a daily basis.
Josh Pritchard: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Especially in, in where I'm at, cause I'm doing the outpatient and the inpatient. Uh, so, uh, it, it kind of lets me work on all my, my skill sets, uh, you know, keep it fresh.
Paul Szmal: Now, what do you enjoy about working within the UR Medicine and Finger Lakes Health family?
Josh Pritchard: Uh, I've, I've always enjoyed working, uh, in the family. We've got really great staff, um, that are passionate and care about their patients. And, uh, you know, I feel as if, you know, working there, we've, we've really done a great job at helping the community, um, from a community standpoint, a lot of our therapists live in the area, live amongst all of our patients, you know, you can see them at tops, wave to them and, and, you know, we really care.
Paul Szmal: Uh, the, how long, how many years of education did you go through to be able to become an occupational therapist?
Josh Pritchard: I got my master's, so it's a accelerated program through Keuka College, which is, it's five years continuous instead of the six that you might see at a, uh, like Utica College or Ithaca College. Um, but yeah, so, um, I got my master's degree, um, and then they're also offering a doctorate, but I just have the master's right now. It's kind of, all right, I've done enough. I want to get out in the real world and do this.
Paul Szmal: Yeah. Like working with the people.
Josh Pritchard: Yeah. And I guess maybe that's one of the, uh, one of the best parts of the job is working with people.
Paul Szmal: Yes. Yeah. I love to work with people, love helping people. It's always been a part of who I am. So I've always enjoyed this, this career and what it offers for me.
Paul Szmal: Uh, where do you see yourself going in the future?
Josh Pritchard: Um, well, continuing well, because I have such a broad range right now, I would, I love to continue kind of working in that. Um, you know, eventually maybe settling down and either just outpatient or inpatient, um, but for now I, I just keep going with what I'm doing.
Paul Szmal: And, and as you said, there's a kind of a difference between inpatient care and outpatient.
Josh Pritchard: Yes. Yep. Yeah. The, the, um, outpatient, like I said, is primarily just orthopedic stuff. You do see some strokes still, but that's like after they've gone home, it's kind of more of the fine tuning or working on what they started at the inpatient level. Whereas, uh, you know, the inpatient swing bed is more like a short-term rehab. So you're like working with people to get them home safely in order.
Paul Szmal: Um, so I got to think one of the more rewarding parts of the experience is watching people as they go through using different techniques, therapies, et cetera, watching them progress, watching them get better, watching them be able to get back to doing simple things that we take for granted, like getting in the car and going somewhere.
Josh Pritchard: Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's no better feeling than when you have a patient meet the success and you can see it on their face, you know, and you're just as happy as they are that they're able to accomplish their goals.
Paul Szmal: Uh, now if people want to find out more information about the occupational, uh, about occupational therapy, how do they reach out?
Josh Pritchard: Thanks for asking, Paul. Um, we actually have three outpatient clinics where we offer occupational therapy. We have it at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hospital. We also offer it at Guernsey Rehab at Geneva General, and we have it in Waterloo. All of our locations and the, um, phone numbers are on flhealth.org.
Kim Ilaqua: And I also want to say happy occupational therapy to Josh and the rest of the team. And also they do, um, work with the residents over in our long-term care that need rehab too. So it's a very wide spectrum. So we're very fortunate to have such a great occupational, um, therapy.
Paul Szmal: So you really do cover a wide spectrum in your job.
Josh Pritchard: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Paul Szmal: Wow. That's amazing. Well, I appreciate you coming in. Thank you so much, Josh.
Josh Pritchard: It's been great.
Paul Szmal: Kim, good to see you as always.
Kim Ilaqua: Thank you so much.
Paul Szmal: It is 8 48. It's FLX morning.
