Clinical (In)experience

This blog concerns a past placement. It was an ortho outpatients placement and I was treating a man who complained of lateral ankle pain after a incident 6/52 previously. He had a doctor's certificate to cover him from not working and saw me 3 x a week over 3/52. During the time i was treating him I struggled to find out what was exactly wrong with this patient. His ankle was not swollen, nor was their bruising evident however he had the symptom of allodynia if I had ever seen it. Just touching his ankle sometimes would have him flinching in pain. I was open-minded about the situation, clearly lacking the clinical experience I was not about to judge him and therefore continued to treat his symptoms of pain, lack of ROM and reduced weight-bearing. When my Clinical Tutor sat in on a Rx session he told me afterwards that this patient was perhaps not being genuine to me and to himself (or words to that effect). I did not change my attitude to this patient in spite of this synopsis from the tutor.
On my last week at this placement the patient informed me that his Doctor's certificate was due to expire and he was not fit to resume his casual position of employment. My supervisor indicated to me I would need to make a decision on the said patient's request, Was he unfit for work or not? I simply wrote my objective findings and the patients' subjective complaints on the form for the Doctor. I had told my supervisor in confidence I thought their was nothing wrong with this patient's ankle to which he replied "indicate that on the form". I told him I would prefer to report my findings as above.
What would you have done in this situation now and would it be different if you were not a student? For me it may have been different if I was not a student.