Represents the unique perspective of occupational therapy when participating in inter-professional situations
Occupational therapy is considered one of the most obscure jobs in the medical field because it's title doesn't aptly describe what all it entails. For instance, when I reply "OT" when asked what I study, it's often followed-up with the question, "Oh do you work on getting people jobs?" Sadly, this is also the case with many other healthcare professionals who have either never heard of my title before or don't fully understand what I do. As a future occupational therapist, I must be able to not only advocate for my clients but also my profession, especially when I'm working on a healthcare team. This means that I must represent the unique beliefs, values, and perspective that my profession offers to the healthcare team. In other words, there is a lot of overlap amongst professions (i.e. physical therapy and speech therapy), but we each have our own scope of practice and as a future OT I need to know what my scope of practice is and be able to exhibit that when participating in inter-professional situations.
I was asked to be a part of the LEND program, representing the occupational therapy department, as a part of my second fieldwork. "LEND" stands for Leadership Education in Neurodevelopment and I worked with other disciplines to help children in the Mid-South. I helped multiple children and their families during doctor consultations by providing insight to the doctor for an OT referral based on my observations and clinical reasoning. For example, one child's poor behavior may have been attributed to him seeking sensory input due to his high sensory threshold. I suggested OT could help him and his family incorporate sensory input strategies to help him meet the sensory threshold and reduce the occurrences for poor behavior. The doctor wrote an order for the child to see an OT right away. It was a great opportunity and I am honored and very grateful to have been chosen for such an experience.
In order to be a part of the LEND program, I had to be willing to provide a Brown Bag, or evidence-based research presentation, to various leaders at the Boling Center as well as my peers. Coincidentally, I was going to give a presentation at my fieldwork site about bruxism in children with Down syndrome, explaining how OT can help with this particular challenge. I had a hard time finding information on bruxism relating to occupational therapy but with the help of my professor and mentor, I was able to find a topic that addressed sensory issues in children with Down syndrome and how OT addresses them.
Over the past several weeks, I had come to find out that few professionals in the LEND program truly knew what occupational therapy was or what we did. I found my Brown Bag to be a wonderful opportunity to shed light on the profession and its uniqueness. (In fact, I have attached the presentation below for anyone who may be interested to learn more about occupational therapy and sensory issues in children with Down syndrome.)
I first clarified what OT is by giving my elevator speech:
Everyone has occupations. They're those things that fill up or occupy your time during the day. For instance, I like to color and draw in my free time. If something happened to me that left me paralyzed on my dominant side then I would no longer be able to do what I enjoy doing; I would no longer be able to occupy my time with meaningful occupations like drawing and coloring. An occupational therapist would help me modify or adapt my ability to draw and color.
I then asked my audience to give me some examples of things they enjoy doing that occupy their time. I got a lot of great responses and related my elevator speech to one audience member's occupation. I think a brief explanation cleared up any questions about OT. As I gave my presentation, I continuously brought in other disciplines to compare and contrast how they handle a situation versus how OT handles it. I also gave concrete examples of the distinct value of occupational therapy when working with children with sensory issues (i.e. Autism Spectrum Disorder). I believe what piqued my audience's interest was the number of senses humans actually have. Most people know of 5 but not many people know that there are actually 8 senses that we use on a regular basis. The reason why I believe this roused my audience was because this was a totally different aspect than what they all normally looked at.
By pointing this out, along with other key points from the research article, I was able to advocate for my profession and the importance it has for children with disabilities. I mentioned that OTs know a lot about these topics and would make any and all clinicians' lives easier by referring children for OT because we might identify something that they were less familiar with.
Check out this video from Audiopedia (2017) explaining what OT is and what OTs can do! (I did not make this video and have included this video for educational purposes only.)
I was asked to be a part of the LEND program, representing the occupational therapy department, as a part of my second fieldwork. "LEND" stands for Leadership Education in Neurodevelopment and I worked with other disciplines to help children in the Mid-South. I helped multiple children and their families during doctor consultations by providing insight to the doctor for an OT referral based on my observations and clinical reasoning. For example, one child's poor behavior may have been attributed to him seeking sensory input due to his high sensory threshold. I suggested OT could help him and his family incorporate sensory input strategies to help him meet the sensory threshold and reduce the occurrences for poor behavior. The doctor wrote an order for the child to see an OT right away. It was a great opportunity and I am honored and very grateful to have been chosen for such an experience.
In order to be a part of the LEND program, I had to be willing to provide a Brown Bag, or evidence-based research presentation, to various leaders at the Boling Center as well as my peers. Coincidentally, I was going to give a presentation at my fieldwork site about bruxism in children with Down syndrome, explaining how OT can help with this particular challenge. I had a hard time finding information on bruxism relating to occupational therapy but with the help of my professor and mentor, I was able to find a topic that addressed sensory issues in children with Down syndrome and how OT addresses them.
Over the past several weeks, I had come to find out that few professionals in the LEND program truly knew what occupational therapy was or what we did. I found my Brown Bag to be a wonderful opportunity to shed light on the profession and its uniqueness. (In fact, I have attached the presentation below for anyone who may be interested to learn more about occupational therapy and sensory issues in children with Down syndrome.)
I first clarified what OT is by giving my elevator speech:
Everyone has occupations. They're those things that fill up or occupy your time during the day. For instance, I like to color and draw in my free time. If something happened to me that left me paralyzed on my dominant side then I would no longer be able to do what I enjoy doing; I would no longer be able to occupy my time with meaningful occupations like drawing and coloring. An occupational therapist would help me modify or adapt my ability to draw and color.
I then asked my audience to give me some examples of things they enjoy doing that occupy their time. I got a lot of great responses and related my elevator speech to one audience member's occupation. I think a brief explanation cleared up any questions about OT. As I gave my presentation, I continuously brought in other disciplines to compare and contrast how they handle a situation versus how OT handles it. I also gave concrete examples of the distinct value of occupational therapy when working with children with sensory issues (i.e. Autism Spectrum Disorder). I believe what piqued my audience's interest was the number of senses humans actually have. Most people know of 5 but not many people know that there are actually 8 senses that we use on a regular basis. The reason why I believe this roused my audience was because this was a totally different aspect than what they all normally looked at.
By pointing this out, along with other key points from the research article, I was able to advocate for my profession and the importance it has for children with disabilities. I mentioned that OTs know a lot about these topics and would make any and all clinicians' lives easier by referring children for OT because we might identify something that they were less familiar with.
Check out this video from Audiopedia (2017) explaining what OT is and what OTs can do! (I did not make this video and have included this video for educational purposes only.)