1. Demonstrates the ability to give constructive and timely feedback. Throughout all of my rotations, I had the opportunity to give constructive and timely feedback whether it was given informally throughout the week or formally during midterm and final evaluations. The majority of the meetings I had were informal to discuss concerns, progress, or clinical questions. A specific example of a time when I was able to give constructive feedback occurred during my pediatric rotation. My supervisor and I had a client on our caseload that had severe hypotonia and a high BMI requiring a hoyer lift for transfers from wheelchair to a mat. Our sessions were also co-treated with a physical therapist. The first couple of visits, I observed how my supervisor and the PT transferred her via the hoyer lift and adjusted the wheelchair settings to prepare for transfer. Around the third week, my supervisor asked me if I wanted to try to transfer the client. I replied yes, thinking I would be able to practice using a hoyer lift. However, my supervisor wanted me to practice my dependent transfer skills even though the client was always transferred using a hoyer lift and two therapist. As I began the dependent transfer, I realized that it would not be safe for me to complete by myself, and asked for help because the client's safety is most important. My supervisor informed me that she wanted me to improve my dependent transfer skills following that session to which I agreed. The following week, she asked me to perform a dependent transfer on the same client again. I had another failed transfer attempt and required help again. I used this as opportunity to be honest and I informed her that if I was an OTR/L and this client was on my caseload, I would never transfer her alone because it is not safe for me or the client. I told her that I would use a hoyer lift just like the PT and her used to ensure a safe transfer. My supervisor respected my feedback and let me practice a transfer using a hoyer lift. I am glad that this experience occurred early during my level II rotations, because it helped me realize the importance of speaking up and providing constructive, timely feedback because if I did not address my concerns about this transfer with my supervisor, the client or I could have been injured. 2. Modifies behavior in response to feedback; seeks opportunities to apply feedback. I believe if you do not modify your behavior in response to feedback, it would be impossible to learn and grow to become a better therapist. I consistently sought opportunities to apply feedback during all of my rotations. During my pediatric rotation, my supervisor informed me that she wanted me to be more animated with the children no matter how silly it felt. Personally, I felt awkward being goofy for an infant when my supervisor and the client's parents were watching. However, I knew that being animated is a vital aspect of being a pediatric therapist and I was just going to have to get over my own self-conscious thoughts! Carrie Hoing, OTR/L stated, "she has shown increased animation, flexibility, and creativity during her attempts to engage the patients in treatment activities over the past several weeks." During my second rotation at ELMHS, my supervisor expressed that she wanted me to make my documentation more concise without leaving out relevant information. Monthly notes were typed and had to fit on one page. Prior to the feedback she gave me, my monthly notes were typed in size 10 font. However, after her feedback I was able to type my monthly notes in size 12 font while ensuring all relevant information was provided. Stacey Dupre, OTR/L stated, "I cannot say enough about your performance. You were able to take direction and implement suggestions with obvious success...very impressive!" I am grateful for the constructive feedback that I received from my supervisors because it allowed me to improve my skills to prepare me to become a successful OTR/L.
3. Productively uses knowledge of own strengths and weaknesses. Throughout the didactic portion of occupational therapy school, I knew that anatomy was not my strongest subject. Other classes and concepts came much easier to me, and I felt like I had to study significantly harder for anatomy. Even though the class was a challenge, I loved the subject and have always been intrigued by anatomy. As most people know, I am very competitive and I love a good challenge. When it came time to start thinking about level II rotations, I felt like I needed to choose a rotation in an area that I did not feel I was as strong in. I chose to challenge myself and ranked Southern Hand Centers as number one on my wishlist because I knew completing a hand rotation would improve my confidence in my ability to apply anatomy and biomechanics. Out of the three rotations, I was most nervous to start my hand rotation because I knew from the start how challenging it was going to be. I was upfront with my supervisor about my desire to be able to better understand the complexity of the hand. My supervisor utilized my strength of wanting to learn, and was consistently encouraging and provided me with numerous opportunities to become more comfortable with explaining diagnoses, evaluating, and educating patients on hand anatomy. I was successful in completing a "flexor/tendon extravaganza" assignment during my rotation that proved that I had greatly increasing my understanding of the anatomy of the hand. See attached PDF below. Megan Brack, OTR/L stated, "evaluation skills have greatly improved over the last 12 weeks. This specialty setting can be a challenge given the immense knowledge required of anatomy and biomechanics, paired with number protocols to choose from." I am so glad that I challenged myself because I feel much more prepared to answer anatomy questions on the NBCOT exam.
4. Maintains balance in personal and professional life while prioritizing professional responsibilities and commitments. While on my first two rotations, I was also planning a wedding. It was essential that I maintained a balance in my personal and professional life while ensuring I fulfilled all my professional responsibilities and commitments first. In order to stay organized, I kept a detailed planner, and made a promise to myself to not let wedding planning take priority over my fieldwork experiences. I always completed required assignments for fieldwork during the week, and planned for my wedding on the weekends. All of my wedding appointments were made on Saturdays to ensure that I did not miss any learning opportunities during my rotations. I was able to successfully complete my first two rotations while turning in all assignments in a timely manner, and also had the best wedding ever ;) I understand the importance of maintaining professionalism and not allowing personal business to disrupt work responsibilities.
5. Demonstrates functional level of confidence and self assurance. While on my pediatric rotation, I realized early on that I was not as confident in my skills when treating clients who had severe neurological impairments. Because I felt that they were so fragile, I was fearful of hurting them and even had difficulty planning effective treatment sessions. After my first session treating someone with a severe neurological impairment, I addressed my concerns with my supervisor. After we talked, I quickly realized that these clients are just like everyone else and there is no reason for me to treat them any different than other clients. Once my mindset changed, I was able to effectively treat them with more confidence and self assurance. I was no longer afraid to challenge them during therapy sessions, and my treatment sessions became more client-centered and motivating secondarily. For example, during one of my treatment sessions I was able to have my client play Uno while in a standing frame to provide a stretch to his lower extremity while also working on fine motor skills because I was able to overcome my fear of transferring him into a standing frame! At my final evaluation, Carrie Hoing OTR/L stated, "She has shown increased confidence in her ability to treat children of different ages and levels of impairment. She has shown increased variety and creativity in her treatment activities." I feel like throughout the past nine months, my confidence in my abilities to be a successful occupational therapist have greatly increased in all aspects of the OT process.
6. Uses humor to diffuse tension. I have learned that I naturally use humor everyday-whether I am aware of it or not! However, on my psychosocial rotation, I became more aware of the fact that I frequently use humor when I am nervous or anxious. For example, a client arrived to my stress management group visibly upset. She was upset that the group was late and that a staff member would not allow her to eat popcorn. She was so frustrated that she did not want to participate in group. I took this as an opportunity to encourage her to think positively. I asked her, “what is the best thing that has happened today?” As her arms were still folded across her chest, she replied, “taking a hot shower.” I said, “ugh! I thought you were going to say seeing me!” The client instantly began to laugh and said, “you are so silly.” Her mood instantly changed, and she became an active group participant. At the end of the session, she thanked me for helping her day be more positive. Using humor to diffuse the situation, not only allowed the client to become an active group participant, but it also helped the client make progress towards her goal of actively participating in four consecutive group sessions. If I had not used humor to help relieve the stress she was feeling, she would have not made progress towards her goal. It was not until that moment, that I realized how important humor is to developing rapport and helping the client feel more comfortable during therapy. Laughing is truly one of the best medicines!
7. Maintains professional behavior, regardless of problem or situation. During my rotation at ELMHS, I had one client who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She would be completely happy one second, and then very passive aggressive and disrupted the next second. During one group session, I had to inform my group that the date of the cooking group had changed due to conflicts with my supervisor's schedule. I knew that this would disappoint them because they always look forward to cooking groups. However, my client with borderline personality disorder became very passive aggressive towards me stating things like, "you think you are a queen and do not care about anyone but yourself so you just change things to prove your power." I calmly used this as an opportunity to remind her of her coping skills and allowed her reflect on the things she can and cannot control in the situation. However, the client's mood escalated and she tried to argue with me. I started to notice other group members becoming visibly uncomfortable. I informed the client that she had been arguing for twenty minutes, and we would have to discuss the problem after the session was over because it would not be fair to other group members if I spent the entirety of the group session talking with her. Despite never raising my voice and talking in a calm, soothing tone, she continued to raise her voice and yell. I then proceeded to get my supervisor so she could discuss the concerns with the client because the client was so upset with me. I was then able to proceed with the rest of the group session. My supervisor reported that she was very proud of how I handled the situation, and I made sure to go to the ward that afternoon to discuss the incident with the client. The client realized that she did not behave appropriately and apologized to me, and I apologized that the cooking group had to be changed. This experience proves that I was able to maintain professionalism even when someone was upset with me for something that was outside of both of our controls.
8. Takes risks to maximize outcomes. During my pediatric rotation, I had a client with cerebral palsy that had turned 18 and was graduated from school. She was fully independent with propelling her wheelchair, transfers, and BADLs. During her sessions we worked on meal prep, budgeting, and cursive handwriting. However, one session she expressed to me that she wanted to find a part-time job because she wanted to start making her own money. I was so happy for her and told her that we can work on skills needed to obtain a job during our treatment sessions. She reported that the only problem was that her mom did not want her to have a job because she did not think she had the necessary skills to work despite her progress in OT. I took this opportunity to discuss with the client's mom all the benefits of her working and how we can work on general skills needed for most jobs during therapy sessions because it was time to update her plan of care and create new goals. The mom expressed that she was ok with us working on job skills during therapy sessions, but she was still hesitant on letting her apply for an actual job because she did not want her daughter to become discouraged and overwhelmed. During the next sessions, the client and I discussed what type of job she wanted to work. She expressed that she wanted to work as a cashier because we had been working on math and budgeting during OT and it was a skill she felt confident in. Once we established a job she desires to obtain, I taught her how to search for jobs on the computer. Over the next couple of weeks, I taught her how to create a resume and even provided her with a resource on an upcoming job fair in the community. Because her mom saw how motivated she was to participate in the therapy sessions since we began working on skills to obtain a job, the mom finally saw the benefit and agreed that it would be good for her daughter to have a part-time job. My client ended up getting hired to work as a cashier at Home Depot for ten hours a week. I am so happy that I was able to take a risk and advocate for my client to her mom because my client now felt like she had a purposeful occupation to engage in post graduation. As a plus she was excited she was finally making her own money and frequently came to therapy with new jewelry from Claires!
9. Uses knowledge and information in an innovative way. While I was on my rotation at ELMHS, I frequently incorporated the sensory system into group sessions because of the research I previously discussed on the benefits of engaging the sensory system during interventions with the mental health population. All of the clients in my lower functioning group had goals to work on impulse control. During a group session, I had the group create impulse control flip books. When practicing impulse control, the motto we used was "stop, think, act." The flip books used red, yellow, and green construction paper. The red paper corresponded with the word "stop", the yellow paper corresponded with "think", and the green paper corresponded with "act." I had the group write down coping skills that they could use on the red paper to help them "stop." On the yellow paper, they wrote down things that they needed to "think" about such as consequences and pros/cons to their choice. On the green paper, they wrote that they should "act" on the choice that had the best consequences. The sensory activity was engaged in many aspects from using bright colored construction paper, having them write and discuss, and putting together a flip book. My client's loved the activity, remained focused, and provided more relevant feedback on impulse control compared to other activities that did not engage as many aspects of the sensory system.
10. Empowers clients and team members. Empowering clients and team members creates a fun, therapeutic environment. I have been fortunate that all of the staff at all of my fieldwork sites treat each other like family. I feel like when co-workers enjoy being around each other and are able to collaborate effectively, it translates to quality patient care. During my rotation at ELMHS, I was able to empower my team members by taking on a leadership role for creating a float for the ELMHS annual Christmas parade. I was responsible for creating a theme, designing our float, and delegating tasks to OT staff to ensure that our float would be complete in time. Our theme was Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. We had to build the float in a cold warehouse with no heat! I helped the team keep a positive attitude by playing Christmas music and bringing popcorn and hot chocolate while we worked. It was such a fun experience and a great opportunity to have a leadership role amongst OT staff. We were all able to come together to create an amazing float that ended up coming in second place! Below are pictures that I took of the float we created!
11. Actively participates in leadership or supportive roles in local, state, and/or national associations. Because I am still a student, I have not had opportunities to participate or have a leadership role in local, state, or national associations. However, I am currently a member of AOTA. Once I have enough finances, I plan to attend AOTA conferences. I do enjoy having leadership roles and am interested in holding leadership positions in the future in order to advocate for the needs of our profession.
12. Maintains values over self-promotion or profit. Fortunately, I have not been placed in any situations where I had to choose between maintaining my values or choosing self-promotion. However, during my final rotation at Southern Hands, there was another student on his final fieldwork rotation from another occupational therapy school in Mississippi. One of our fieldwork assignments was to fabricate seven splints throughout the twelve weeks. Naturally, I am very competitive and wanted to always ensure my splints looked better than his so I could appear to be the "better student." Unfortunately, splint fabrication does not come easily for me. I was often discouraged and frustrated when our fieldwork educators would review our splints because the other student would always have less mistakes to correct. After making three splints, I finally realized that it is not about the competition of fabricating a splint that had less mistakes than the other student, but I needed to comprehend the function of the splint and common diagnoses that the fabricated splint is commonly used for. Once I approached orthotic fabrication with this mindset, I became more relaxed and gained a better understanding of the function of the splints that I was fabricating. Secondarily, my splints started to look better and I was making less mistakes! I have learned that it is much more important to comprehend concepts and improve my clinical thinking and skills than trying to be the best, most smart student who is able to do everything perfectly on the first try. Without making mistakes it would be impossible to grow as a future practitioner. I have attached a PDF of a couple orthotics that I fabricated on my fieldwork educator!