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Show . f I - 5 , ' 4 V J " V v -1 X 3 1 A N s: , p mvmn k J ; .4y. 1 it i i I ! j 1 I M f ! Christine Littlefield, respiratory and inhalation technician at Garfield Memorial Hospital, treats her mother, Violet Littlefield. Littlefield moved here from Santa Fe, New Mexico, but is a native of Tropic. She has many other interests. Therapist Is Really A Teacher At Heart Garfield Memorial Hospital's physical therapist Christine Littlefield Little-field is a teacher at heart. If she isn't rehabilitating a patient, she's probably prob-ably teaching or getting a class started. For the past two years, Littlefield Little-field served as advisor and teacher to an Explorer medical post, introducing introduc-ing high-schoolers to the medical profession. Twice a month, the youth visit the hospital and are introduced in-troduced to its different areas. "I love working with those young adults," Littlefield recalls. "It was a wonderful program and a tremendous community service. I worried at first that our hospital was too small to give them a good feel for the health care profession, but my worries were unfounded." Another of Littlefield's teaching projects was a three-month adult fitness class covering such topics as weight management, nutrition, exercise ex-ercise and stress management. The class was free except for the cost of blood tests, which were administered adminis-tered at a reduced rate as part of each class member's fitness profile. "It was very successful," she says. "We had a great turnout and got a lot of people walking and doing do-ing other activities. I've noticed residents of our community overall have become more interested in fitness, fit-ness, but they need to know correct principles. You can't just say, 'No pain, no gain' or you'll end up on my physical therapy table." Littlefield believes a hospital's role should be to teach wellness as much as treat illness. "We are always al-ways willing to speak to church groups, clubs, schools and other groups," she says. "We want to bring our knowledge to the community. com-munity. Part of every hospital's purpose is to provide education. We're very interested in seeing community members at times other than when they walk through our doors with a problem." Currently, Littlefield is hoping to interest local schools in having her do posture checks on children ages 10 and older. Littlefield has worked as a physical therapist for more than 20 years, rehabilitating patients, alleviating alle-viating pain, treating back problems prob-lems and dealing with a host of other problems. She left Salt Lake City for Panguitch eight years ago. "It's been quite a change working in a rural area after spending most of my professional life in Salt Lake City, but I've enjoyed it," she says. "I enjoy working with my patients here because they are my friends and relatives. I can follow up on their progress better because I see them around town." Littlefield is also the hospital's only respiratory therapist. Two years ago she took a difficult two-year two-year respiratory therapy correspondence correspon-dence course paid for in part by the hospital so there would be a respiratory res-piratory therapist on staff. She has also learned to take X-rays. Like most health care workers in rural areas, Littlefield wears many hats. "In some ways I like doing all these different jobs and feel I'm really making a contribution to the hospital and the community," she says. "Other times I just feel overwhelmed. over-whelmed. My friends in Salt Lake City said I'd be bored down here. The last thing I am is bored. I feel I've branched out and learned many new skills. "Sometimes when I go to health care conferences up north I wonder if others think the staff here is not important because we work at a small hospital. But we are. We're important to the people in our community who appreciate and value us and the hospital. We may not be equipped to handle the difficult diffi-cult procedures, but we do a good job on the basics," says Littlefield. Education certainly is one of the basics and the teacher in Littlefield shines through. "I like teaching my patients how to alleviate pain, how to care for themselves, how to manage chronic back problems, and how to maintain good nutrition and proper exercise." Garfield Memorial Hospital is part of Intcrmountain Health Care, the Salt Lake City-based not-for-profit health care company. |