Updated my sidebar with new (to me) OT blogs

Linda at http://www.lindasdailylivingskills.com has some really thorough and insightful blog posts on OT!

Dani, who says “Oh, add mine, add mine! I'm an OT student in the UK in my second year. It's not entirely about OT, but about my life learning in general.”   http://www.munchkinandflan.com

Tink who is about to become an OT student, http://tink343-unistudentlife.blogspot.com/

Mendel, with a really thought-provoking site at  http://kidsatthought.com/

Don't forget to check out TherapyFunZone http://www.therapyfunzone.com/ which has great stuff (I saw she very recently posted some new ideas!) and I am also loving OT in Public Schools http://otinpublicschools.blogspot.com/

I recommend using Google Reader or some other RSS reader so that you know when new posts come in, all in one spot, rather than having to go check each blog individually. I love Google Reader. 🙂

Nurse in Haiti

My cousin is a nurse who recently went to Haiti to help out for a week. She wrote us two mails – here is one and hopefully I will find the other one. I also know an OT friend who went to Haiti a few months after the earthquake and I am hoping she will share some of her experiences here! I just asked her. 🙂 I know this is an OT blog and not a nursing one, but hey, it's healthcare, so good to see the perspective!

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SpongeBob washing + OT month in Times Square!

Basically I am going through months of mail including newsletters, emails from former co-workers, blog comments, e-mails, etc, hence the massive posts right now as I try to clear through the mailbox – I still have 76 new mails + over a 1,000 to go through. 🙁 Anyway, two random bits

1) During this month (OT MONTH! APRIL IS OT MONTH!), Times Square in NYC is running an advertisement for OT EVERY HOUR! That is CRAZY! Have any of you seen this? 🙂 Definitely high-def.

2) A former-coworker/supervisor/physical therapist wrote me to tell me that one of my OT ideas is still a hit for the child to do while in PT! I got a turkey baster from the dollar store, filled a bin with water, and then the child “washes” SpongeBob using the turkey baster – I had a SpongeBob PotatoHead that likes to be washed! I left him in my former clinic because he was so popular. Anyway – so – idea – have the child use a turkey baster to “wash” their favorite toy. It works on the child's hand strength and a little on sequencing – so it can be an OT tool by itself, or it can turn into a PT tool if the child is using it as an engrossing activity while working on standing/kneeling/whatever! 🙂

I love OT, yes I do…..

I love this!

One of my blog readers/now Facebook friends/current OT student/current OT student blogger, who I will label “M”, wrote me to let me know one of her classmates found my blog by googling “I love OT”. And then that classmate discovered through my sidebar that “M” had a blog too! Small world. I LOVE that my blog was found by googling “I love OT”. And I love that M's classmate googled that in the first place. 🙂

Hey, speaking of loving OT….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJRIVUOtCzs   this was our Miss OTPF pageant from 2008, one of our silly OT contestants was a cheerleader who cheers about OT spirit. 🙂

Fun & Function – SPD blogger network

Can y'all tell I am on a blogging blizzard tonight? At the expense of my taxes of course. But I have felt really guilty about getting so behind on responding to blog reader e-mail/comments etc, and I am finally opening up months worths of newsletters. Fun & Function has a good newsletter and Facebook page and I just learned about the SPD blogger network through them. http://www.spdbloggernetwork.com/about/

Check it out and also check out Fun & Function (google it!). 🙂 It will be helpful for OT/OT students alike.

Tips from a school OT :)

I am copy/pasting tips from an e-mail I got recently from a school OT I will name “L”! Great ideas/thoughts that she gave, as always use at your own risk!

One of the things I have been loving lately are mechanical pencils. They are wonderful tools for those students who push too hard on their pencil or their pencil is never sharp. Some teachers only allow sharpening 3 pencils at the beginning of the day and then that is it. Unfortunately, the students I see need sharp pencils! This also isn't as nice to chew on as wood pencils-although if there is a will there is a way!

I also use the rubber tubing at the top of pencils for a chewy section. I used to glue them in when they didn't seem to fit right, however I found just wrapping the pencil with tape can provide enough diameter to make the chewy part stay put.

I love adapted paper and carry it with me practically everywhere. I keep it in a binder tucked in sheet protectors and refill when I am in the office. I also put screening tools in there and freebies off of the HWT website-like the sheet that tells how to form all the letters appropriately.

Planning and scheduling can be very difficult-I work in small school districts so I hit one school district Monday through Thursday. At the beginning of the year I set up a schedule for the students on IEP's and try to work around activities as much as possible. What is difficult is I think in days of the week, so when it is Tuesday and I forgot something on Monday, I am not going to remember it until next Monday-probably when I am already at the school. I just purchased a Samsung Galaxy S and am using for my calendar and notes and whatnot. I still have a hard planner and write things down in there as well.

Will I ever be good enough? OT student Fears

Okay, I got this letter from a sweet OT student, sharing her fieldwork fears, who is clearly going to be JUST FINE. 🙂 So my answer is on top, her e-mail is on bottom.

Regarding the fear of not being good enough yet, or that you’ll never be good enough: ASKING THAT QUESTION MEANS YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH. 🙂 if you have a healthy respect (sometimes fear) of what you don’t know, you will always strive to learn more – with continuing education, reaching out to mentors, etc. It means you are far above most people/therapists and that you clearly show the compassion/concern/desire for growth that makes you an excellent clinician.

It’s true, your skills aren’t perfect yet -and won’t be for a long time. But with each day you will learn new things and slowly you will see the growth you want. Having a good mentor – or multiple mentors – is huge. Reach out to people you admire in the field. Talk to your co-workers. Read books written by people with the diagnoses you treat. Read community forums for those people. Put yourself in their shoes. Practice with your cooperative friends. Observe people in the supermarket. I promise you, these skills that seem so elusive, will eventually come.

Just keep working at them and realize you are doing your best. Also, everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. There are things that you as a new practitioner bring to the table that an experienced practitioner can’t – such as fresh eyes, recent education, a (hopefully) still unjaded attitude, a creativity for “out of the box” ideas that mostly comes from not knowing any better/different, and then your own therapeutic value. You may have more compassion, more kindness, more creativity, who knows. A lot of times patients are helped just by having someone there who cares. Realize that half the battle – if not more – is just having the patient feel that sense of value/connection with you. Using your “therapeutic use of self.”

So have faith in yourself. Believe in yourself. Know that as long as you ALWAYS know – even twenty years from now – that you don’t know everything and that’s okay. Know that we are in a profession that thrives on constant growth and development, and NONE of us, not even the AOTA president or your most revered OT mentor, know it all. There will be periods you feel great about your growth, periods where you are depressed about what you don’t know, and periods where you don’t care or think you are doing fine. It will all balance out. Just keep growing the way you are now and you will be fine.

PS: I guarantee you will do things in your first year (or years) where you will look back and go WHAT WAS I THINKING OH MY GOSH. Or “I’m such a fraud. They like me and think I am doing a good job but I have no idea what I’m doing.” That’s okay. Everyone feels like a fraud. Everyone has those movements of retrospection where they realize what all they didn’t know. Just keep working to improve your skills, realize you don’t know what you don’t know, but as long as you follow the mantra of “Do no harm”, you’ll be okay, and you’ll survive those moments of WHAT WAS I DOING?! 🙂
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Hi Karen,
I am a fourth year OT student at the University of EDITED, currently on my level II Fieldwork. I came across your blog when researching one of my many projects and it was a big encouragement (and nice distraction!) for me. Thank you for writing it!  I needed a little humor, and reading many of your postings rung true with my own experiences in OT school! It’s so nice to know that you have been there, made it through and are now a successful practitioner (because sometimes we wonder…is it all worth it? Will I make it through, graduate, practice for a while, learn, become awesome, and NOT hurt my patients? lol)

As I have been both excited and challenged by my experiences in fieldwork,  I found that I would really love to ask you a few questions, if you wouldn’t mind.

First, I am very afraid for my first patients. I have learned treatment planning pretty well in an inpatient rehab setting (as well as can be expected after three months), but I am still struggling with evaluations. I’m missing silly things like tone, or misjudging ROM or balance, things that I am super super annoyed with because I feel like I should know them! Ugh! I really want to believe that I’ll be a great OT, but that’s hard right now when I can’t imagine it, although I’ve been trying very hard to master skills, (I know I lack clinical reasoning). I’m scared that I won’t be able to pick up on all the details I need to to holistically treat my patients and give them the quality care that they deserve, It’s so frustrating! Any suggestions for how to improve, and/or what the first few years are like after graduation?

I won’t take up any more of your time, but I am so glad I found your blog, wish you all the best, and hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks so much!
Sincerely,
JANE DOE, Occupational Therapy Student
University EDITED

Great sensory article in OT Advance :)

http://occupational-therapy.advanceweb.com/Editorial/Content/Editorial.aspx?CC=236729

Pretty detailed stuff! May need to keep this in mind myself! 🙂

OT in Gifford's case

Great article about PT/ST/OT in Gifford's rehab!
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2014685962_apuscongresswomanshotdischarge.html?emc=lm&m=645114&l=4&v=2724938

OT PR!

http://www.onlinecollege.org/industry-experts/health-and-medicine/occupational-therapist/meet-an-occupational-therapist-karen-dobyns/

A recent online interview with Online College! I wrote my answers up in a hurry (my first week of training for the new job so a little overwhelmed with other stuff to do) so it's not my best stuff but it's still cool! 🙂