First off, I want to say that it’s my 24th birthday, today! 🎊🎉🎈And if you’re already bored with this blog, at least you’ve gotten the jist of this post. Nah, but really, the best is what follows this message!: ⬇️
I’ve only just begun the journey in being able to say I’m an OT student. And although it’s only been a total of about 5 months since I got accepted into a program and I have yet to even start my program (1 month and counting!!) I’ve had to explain this passion of mine about 108 times. Family, friends, coworkers, random strangers at Publix, the list goes on. I’m actually quite grateful to have gotten this extensive practice in sharing that my career won’t be involving helping others get jobs. And honestly, that’s what I believed this field entailed when I first heard the words “occupational” and “therapy” in the same sentence, so I don’t blame those who don’t have the slightest idea as to what it really is. However, myself and others were not completely wrong with their idea of OT. It does indeed, entail occupations or “jobs”, just not the ones we spend thousands of dollars in student debt to achieve 🙃. I have provided my own definition of the title “occupational therapy” as well as other sources I believe describe the field clearly, below:
How I define OT:
Our “occupations” are any task that we perform throughout the day. For a child, it is playing with toy cars or dolls. For others, it may be gardening, driving a car, walking a dog, doing one’s makeup. Needless to say and sometimes overlooked, these occupations (big and small) are what give our lives purpose and when we lose our independence to perform these tasks, it can cause an emotional, psychological, physical, and a sometimes spiritual toll. That is why the entire person is taken into consideration when helping patients reach their goals. Occupational therapy is the holistic approach in which an occupational therapist uses creative, efficient, and meaningful therapeutic exercises to help elevate a person’s independence, ability perform daily tasks, and overall quality of life.
Who can be an OT? (The down and the dirty):
I know I promised positivity in all of my posts. But before pursuing this career, you really have to be honest with yourself. We ALL have unique traits that serve a greater purpose in this life. I think there are a lot of qualities that can make up a good OT but I believe there are four essential qualities that are paramount in this occupation and you should carefully consider these four when deciding if this career is for you. These are the four puzzle pieces that I not only believe are foundational in OT, but build off of one another. Plus I figured it’d be a nice tool for all you visual learners out there 😉:
Compassion:
Why did you become interested in OT? Was it the decent annual income, the title, making your parents proud? Although, you should be conscious of energy/time invested vs. salary and making your parents proud is understandable, THESE ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH REASONS!!!!!!!
These are REAL-LIFE people you will be working with. People who have emotions, many times struggling with depression and lacking m(ot)ivation to carry on. People who have ambitions and goals in life but feel like they don’t know how they can achieve them. People who want to be seen as capable and useful. You CANNOT pursue this profession if the very reason you’re pursuing it is not to work ceaselessly to help others have a quality and satisfying life. Not just for the sake of your patients, but for the sake of your own happiness in your chosen profession. You have to have a big heart for people and their happiness to take on this profession.
Creativ-(OT):
Man, oh man. Creativity is absolutely required in this field. I’ve seen it utilized first-hand SO many times in my shadowing experiences. A patient comes in and they are NOT cooperating with the treatment plan you gave them. Maybe its too painful for them, their environment doesn’t work with it, or maybe they even don’t have the drive to follow the plan you gave them. OT’s have to be creative in understanding the goals the patient has, their passions, their environmental and social means, and be creative enough to connect them all to form one efficient plan for their patient. In my experiences shadowing, OT’s would have to go back to the drawing board almost every visit, making small changes in their means to treatment, becoming better adapted to their patient. The type of creativity required sometimes means doing your grocery store shopping and buying a cereal that comes in different shapes and colors because it might be a good sensory tool for one of your patients. Creativity and OT come hand-in-hand because sometimes the most non-standard tools are the most effective ones. Unfortunately, you won’t have that handy manual to follow in times of need. You must be have the mindset that requires you to think outside the box.
Patience:
This characteristic is essential in OT because like I stated before in “Creativ-OT,” you will have to be able to have the patience to understand your patient’s pace in the goals they are trying to achieve. Appreciating the fact that each patient is remarkably different in their own ways. What treatment plan worked for one patient with Erb’s Palsy (paralysis of arm due to damaging of brachial plexus nerves), might not work for the next patient. You must be able to comprehend that a lot of times you won’t have immediate answers but you must be willing to find the answers. Sometimes sessions are only an hour long and you have to be able to practice your diligence in critical thinking. Your patients will be relying on you and may voice their emotional distress on you. Can you work under pressure? That is a must in this field. Understanding that sometimes your patients won’t have “patience” and you will often have to exhibit perseverance and be their rock. It is one of the key characteristics in understanding the holistic nature of this field.
Communication:
In the field of OT, you must be ready to talk with not only your patients, but other team members in your workplace, as well as outside allied health care professionals (PT’s, SLP’s, MD’s, PA’s, NP’s, RN’s, etc.). But of course, patient communication is the most important of them all. Establishing patient rapport is so important in the effectiveness of your treatment plan. Without it, how can your patient feel confident that you truly care for their well-being? Clear and honest communication is something that, as a health care provider, you must practice to gain the trust of the patient. With my experience in finishing my bachelor’s degree and taking classes like public speaking, I can confidently say that patient interaction is entirely different. I say this because after I graduated, I was hired right off the bat (blessed) to be a research/clinical assistant for a year. My job was to bring patients back from the waiting room and talk with them and their families before the doctor came in. Sometimes lasting 20-30 min, I’d be in the patient’s room collecting information regarding the patient’s health history, their current injury/concerns, and answering any questions on matters I was educated to answer. Although classes like public speaking can get you more comfortable with speaking in front of others, it does not properly equip you to talk with a patient one-on-one. There’s no rehearsed script or powerpoint. It’s something you have to be willing to practice with fellow colleagues, friends, family, coworkers, and even strangers. I got better at it, as you do with any skill you practice, but having that strong foundation in being able to clearly communicate to the patient in these type settings is so important. I say this because there were definitely times where the patient was NOT happy due to their waiting time or their treatment expectations not being met or whatever else kind of reason that isn’t your fault. Had I not been the type of person comfortable in talking and asking the patient how I could help, the situation could have resulted badly and it would have fallen on not just my shoulders, but the clinics. Of course, there are those immediate nerves and uncertainty, but you must be able to talk with your patients in an understanding (even when you don’t understand), patient, and concise way.
Your patients will have this set idea of all they want to accomplish and being able to sit down with that patient and be straightforward in what you two can accomplish together is imperative. As nice as it may seem in the moment to tell your patient that you can give them the ability to fly around the world at 5306 mph, imagine how depressing it would be for them to come to the sad reality that you can’t make them a superhero. Clear and HONEST 😊.
Below, I’ve listed some websites that really helped me understand what OT was all about!
https://www.aota.org/Conference-Events/OTMonth/what-is-OT.aspx
http://chan.usc.edu/about-us/os-and-ot/what-is-ot
https://www.ithaca.edu/hshp/depts/ot/faqs/whatisot/
https://gottabeot.wordpress.com
http://mamaot.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/The-Most-Important-Things-You-Need-to-Know-About-Becoming-an-Occupational-Therapy-Practitioner2.pdf (long document but pages 1-4 will give the general concept of OT)
https://collegegrad.com/careers/occupational-therapists
***I hope this helps out anyone who is interested in pursuing this career. If you have any questions or requests for future topics, drop them below!***
xoxox Meg
So now that I’ve introduced my purpose of this blog, I guess I’ll talk a little about me. I’m just ya average, “claiming to have no time, yet creates blog,” 23 year old girl 😉. 24 in a few days 💁🏻🎉. My dad is white and my mom is Japanese, which makes me a mud-blood. Originally, I’m from Enterprise, AL and moved to 👉🏼 Montgomery, Al now living in 👉🏼 Birmingham, AL. I guess Alabama just can’t get rid of me. No, but seriously, I’ve tried to leave and I’m always called back to this magnificent state 😐. I started playing soccer when I was 5 years old at the recreational level, then club, high school, olympic, division-one collegiate, and semi-pro level (in that order). I was blessed to have accepted a full-ride scholarship to play soccer at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) for 4 years. Occupational Therapy was most definitely not something I started pursuing my freshman year of college but I knew I wanted to have a career in healthcare so I majored in kinesiology and minored in psychology. I finished my B.S. degree in the Spring of 2016. I applied to ✌🏼 occupational therapy programs in the Fall of 2016 and got interviews to both. These programs were UAB (Alabama) and the University of St. Augustine San Marcos (California). Due to financial reasons, I decided to turn down the interview to the University of St. Augustine. This was BEFORE my interview with UAB so essentially all of my 🥚’s were in one basket 😳. After interviewing with UAB, I received the ✨GLORIOUS✨ phone call telling me I was selected to have as seat in their MOT program. And that leads me to my next and final section of my “about me.”
Welcome! My name is Megan and I will be starting my Master’s in Occupational Therapy program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in August 2017. It is a 2.5 year program and this blog will contain everything from my application to OT school to my current experiences in the OT classroom. I will also be covering topics that cover my on-going research in this field and other topics that arise in the community. I am filled with passion for occupational therapy and I’m PROUD to have pursued this career.
Proud to be OT 