OT is IT!
I've recently graduated MSOT and I'm currently studying for the NBCOT. Hurray for being done with fieldwork, but omg for this juggernaut of test prep.
Students have diverse and divergent reactions to their fieldwork placements and assignments often tacked on. I was recently requested to reflect upon what made up my good and bad experiences in the wonderful world of fieldwork. As a result, here is a general list of things that have helped me. (I also welcome any messages/questions about this whole OT business). So, part 1:
11 GOOD THINGS you want to see
- More often than not, talking with your supervisor leaves you feeling good and confident about your career choice.
- Your supervisor asks questions that challenge your clinical thinking, and follows up with discussion of your answer and her observations.
- Your supervisor is genuinely happy to take on students, or at the very least handles the situation with grace and professionalism.
- Staff notes and patient charts are neat, legible, and well organized. (Tell me when you find this place. I want to see if they have openings for OTRs!). If, more often than not, rehab notes are neat and legible you’re in a great place.
- The facility is bright and well-cared for, whether or not they have a great budget.
- The rehab staff communicates well with nursing. And both teams are on good terms overall. (The RNs should be your BFFs.)
- OT, PT, and Speech staff actually know each other and talk on a regular basis. And social work knows what the heck you’re doing, more often than not.
- The facility has staffing and resources to quickly respond to persons protected by ADA regulations, or those who otherwise need additional resources (especially regarding qualified interpreters).
- If staff frequently use different instruments, assessments, techniques, and modalities. And offer opportunities for you to observe and learn as time permits.
- Your OTR supervisor collaborates with and respects the knowledge and ability of any COTAs under her supervision.
- Any other students on site, whether level I or II, are open, friendly, and respect you as another student.
A really great video describing Occupational Therapy
If you ever want to confuse people, tell them glasses are assistive devices that assist people with lower-level vision impairments, and then compare these assistive devices to such things as arm crutches or wheelchairs. In my experience, they’ll often insist that people who wear glasses are normal. (Not like people who use wheelchairs or arm crutches or any other type of assistive tech, no no, those people are disabled. And everyone knows you can tell who has a disability and who doesn’t just by looking at them, right?)
I’ll often introduce people to the idea that our image of what “disabled” looks like is constructed by talking about glasses as assistive tech, just assistive tech that is generally accepted by society. For a lot of people I interact with every day, getting glasses is routine, and you’ll see glasses everywhere on the street – advertisements for fancy glasses frames! and for new types of lenses! Glasses for everyone! (For certain definitions of “everyone”.)
At the same time, media & pop culture still use glasses as “code” – either for This Is Serious Work, or This Person Is A Nerd/Geek (and a particular type at that) or a scientist/doctor, or a Serious Scholar. This is true whether the person uses glasses all the time, or if they just use them for certain things. On Leverage, for example, when “the bruiser” character Eliot puts on his glasses he suddenly becomes totally sexy and I’d totally hit that because I’m shallow it’s usually an indication that his persona for the episode is Egghead/Nerd or Expert on something. Neal, who is a “recovering” con artist, does something similar in White Collar when he’s doing close-up nerdy-type work on his forgeries, or when his persona is “doctor”. I also clearly remember Elle Woods putting on her Serious Glasses and getting into her Serious Clothes for when she wants to be taken seriously as a lawyer in Legally Blonde. Glasses = Smart!
What brings this back to Glasses As Assistive Tech is that glasses are very normalized to people watching the shows, and yet glasses aren’t all the common as just a Thing The Character Wears in the show. I know why this is – glasses cause light-reflections, glasses make it harder to read someone’s expression on the screen, glasses can be dangerous in fight scenes, if they have lenses they can get scratched up and cause more problems, and if you’re not someone who wears glasses all the time I’m betting they’re distracting.
But, of course, movies and television aren’t the only media we consume. Comics, novels, and video games don’t have these problem. You can give every character in a novel glasses if you want, and it doesn’t really matter. And yet, when I was reading romance novels & chick lit all the time, I can only remember one heroine who wore them, and she went through the whole “Oh, but no one will find me pretty! Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses!” (And, despite her glasses being a huge thing in this novel, the cover art didn’t show her with them. Not that this is surprising, but still.)
So what does this have to do with anything? Well, glasses are assistive tech that is very normalized, and yet doesn’t appear very often in our media. When it does appear in our media, it’s often a code for something. This person is Smart. This person is Studious. This person in Playing A Role. This person is Eliot and his glasses make him really really hot omg why are there not more episodes of him wearing glasses and being friendly? And if we can’t see this incredibly common type of assistive tech in our media being used as just a Thing That People Wear, it’s no wonder we so rarely see people using assistive tech in our media just because Some People Are Blind or Some People Uses Arm Crutches or whatever.
[Via: Disabled Feminists.]
A new study from Drexel University researchers published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that when stores in poor neighborhoods do get fresh produce, it is more likely to be close to spoiling or have the potential to make people sick. After buying salad, strawberries, cucumbers and watermelon repeatedly over 15 months in the Philadelphia area, the scientists found that mold, microorganisms and bacteria were all more likely to be present on produce purchased from stores in poor neighborhoods than in wealthier ones. In other words, if you are a poor Philadelphian buying fruits and vegetables in your own neighborhood, chances are your produce will spoil faster and may give you food poisoning.
In terms of social justice and OT in the community, this could be an important consideration for healthy eating groups.
I’ve noticed this in my own neighborhood (around school; it’s largely low-socioeconomic area). I thought shopping at the local places would make me feel more at home in a new neighborhood and get me in sync with the local culture (majority - or close to - Hispanic population). I went in the shops, and never mind feeling embaressed because I know so little Spanish (and what I do know is terrible), the food was either spoiling or off enough that I would never buy it (I once picked up a box of strawberries and the whole bottom was covered in green fuzz.). I go to Whole Foods downtown and everything’s super fresh.
I figured that living in a metropolitan area would give the shops close to equal access to the imports and produce that must flow through the city 24/7. Not so, and this study just confirms what I’ve experienced for myself.
Q: How many Occupational Therapists does it take to change a light-bulb?
A: None. We’d teach the light-bulb to change itself.
My class did this sort of thing and made an OT version of Amy Winehouse’s Rehab. Though most of this video still applies to us. :D
(However, we don’t cure per se; we educate, remediate, and compensate.)
