Musings of an unconventional OT student

As an OT student, we learn so much in a very short period of time. Some things we are good at, some things… not so much. It is important to identify strengths and weaknesses as both impact our performance as health practitioners. You can’t just not see a patient because you aren’t good at a certain aspect of your profession. You need to be able to help whoever walks through the occupational therapy department doors with whatever diagnosis. I have always been one of those people that focus on my weaknesses, as these are places that need the most improvement. On one hand, this is a good thing as I am always looking for things I can improve on. On the other hand, it can become very… depressing if you are constantly looking at your downfalls. With intervention being a whole new aspect of being a third year student, the weaknesses list is going to be A LOT longer than your strengths list. So to list a few weaknesses I have identified during fieldwork… Difficulty writin...

I really love this quote. It gave me a good giggle when I came across it, because life would be quite boring without stress, because people only stress when something important is about to happen. For me, that something important…. Or somethings, was my midterms. Midterms consists of a 20 page case study, a 22 minute case presentation and a 15 minute planned prac exam. I had my prac exam on Monday. A prac exam is a planned 15 minute session of intervention, which your supervisor will mark you on. I had not realised how long 15 minutes was until I had my prac exam. Nerves? Definitely. Feeling like I wanted to run away from the facility? Absolutely. Did it go well? It did. I planned a wheelchair mobility session where my client would have to transfer from the plinth to the wheelchair and wheel himself outside, down a ramp and then up a ramp to go to the dining room for lunch. My client has never done inclines or declines before, and as such, needed to be taught how ...

  This quote is so beautiful as it basically says that it takes all types of people, with different beliefs, different values, different ways of life and different cultures to make the world go round. I think this is such an amazing quote because it speaks of acceptance, consideration and awareness. As OTs, we need to be aware of the various aspects that make up a client as we work holistically by finding out what motivates a person and the way they behave. One of these things is culture. What is culture? The Cambridge English Dictionary defines it as “ the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society” ("CULTURE | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary", 2019) But I feel that this really puts a person into a single box, when really, a person is so multifaceted because there are so many factors that influence a person. I have always thought of it as a marriage between how a person is raised, their personality, their belief system, and the e...

This is the way that I would like to deal with every day, because every day is full of opportunities to make a difference in someone’s life, even be it your own. Every day is a time to start on new page and try to become the person you want to grow to be. It's all about the approach. Similarly, in OT, you need to use an approach when treating your client, but it’s all about the right approach (see what I did there.) But before you can think about an approach, you need to look at applied frames of reference (AFR). A frame of reference is a “reference that is developed from synthesis and interpretation of knowledge.” So in normal English language, it is a reference that is developed using different sources of (e.g. anatomy, physiology) and understanding and making sense of this knowledge to be able to use it as a guide for treatment. It is important to choose an AFR based on your client and their assessment findings.   After choosing an AFR, you THEN move ont...

How do we as OTs help make our clients' dreams come true? Or to make the statement more scientific....How do we as OTs take our clients and their goals into account? As part of our course we learn all about client centered assessment and intervention. This basically means that we use our clients and their challenges and goals as a way to guide our assessment and intervention. Sometimes this can be rather difficult as goals can be unrealistic or not match with your therapeutic goals. How do we solve this problem? Well we can educate if goals are unrealistic and we can incorporate client goals into our intervention plan. How do we do his? As OTs, we are taught all about activity analysis, and by analyzing an activity, you are aware of all the components that make up an activity. If you're aware of all the components, you can change certain aspects to be able to get what you want out of a session while still fulfilling the clients' wishes. I used this approach when treati...

...Or in my case, a thousand hours of fieldwork begins with a single day of fieldwork. And every day of fieldwork, is an opportunity to learn new things. Today I attempted to do my first treatment session... and had varying degrees of success throughout the session. My first session was bed mobility and I used my observations from Monday's session to come up with the treatment plan. As every person's day begins with getting out of bed, it made the most sense to work on helping the client be able to do this (basic client information, observations and assessment findings in previous post.) For my client (spinal cord injury), it was quite a successful session as he learnt new techniques to be able to sit up in bed so that he can be functional, even with his lack of lower limb function. This involved transferring from supine to long sitting and then transferring from long sitting to short sitting (sitting on the edge of the bed - SOEB.) The session was taken a step further ...

So on Monday I had my first experience as a third year OT student on acute physical block. What does all this entail? Interview, assessment and - newly introduced in third year - intervention, all in the space of a couple of hours. Pressure? Not at all. This was not the case with my client as he has a 10 week rehab period so I will be seeing him for my entire block. While there are some advantages, such as not having to write a case study at lastminute.com, and not having to print assessment forms a thousand times, it's something I have experienced in the previous year in both psych and physical blocks and was hoping for some new experiences and new diagnoses. I was rather dejected at having learnt that the turnover rate is not as high as I expected, but as my mother always says, make the best of every opportunity and you will make a difference in someones life (even if that life is your own.) And that's exactly what OT is about. Making a difference in your clients' liv...