Random occupational therapy nuggets of joy


Above: My new flower vase with acrylic glass, PVC pipe, and Aquamend

Above: This is random but it is the multi-inch thick stack of papers I had to go through today, all that in a single day.

Above: Make a pencil grip for someone with no finger capability, using only a rubber band.

Stephanie scoring acrylic

Katie putting on zip ties according to people’s height.

Hi Everyone!

I’m ready to move on from the drama of the last few days regarding my Lolcats post and the surprising (eye-opening) controversy that ensued!

I wanted to post some random (cough long) tidbits, and then Saturday I’m going to give some shout-outs to new readers as well as some exciting shout-outs to my self (I’m going to go from self-deprecating to arrogant overnight), and then Sunday I have the BEST POST ON SENSORY INTEGRATION EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, so you better come back each day this weekend or I’ll cry.

A) I got an e-mail from a local church the other day that had the subject line “13 days after Pentecost” and I read it as “13 days after Percoset”. I’ve been in the medical field too long.

B) The other night I went to a fancy restaurant with some friends (I didn’t have to pay! Woot woot). They started discussing colonoscopies almost immediately. They commented “Oh, this probably isn’t good dinner material for Karen” and my immediate response was “It’s okay, I’m in the healthcare field.” And it was another one of those mini-defining moments in my life, like when I first got to put “OTS” (occupational therapy student) after my name or got my first professional AJOT (American Journal of OCcupational Therapy) in the mail. It just struck me that it is TRUE. I am no longer a generic student. For the first time in my life, I have a career label! That may seem obvious to some of y’all, but hey, I’m a little slow. Oh no, that was self-deprecating. Oops…

C) This is a really really really stupid question (Here I go again), but I am confused gramatically about the whole Master’s degree thing. A lot of girls in my class have the “MOT” written out in their e-mail headers, and they all do it differently. Should we be saying Master of Occupational Therapy? Master’s of Occupational Therapy? Masters of Occupational Therapy? And when we say we are getting this degree, do we say we are getting our Master’s in occupational therapy, or what? I’m so confused. Help me out, peeps.

D) I met with my Group professor to go over the Group I’ll be leading next Wednesday. I am nervous but also kind of excited. I have decided it is going to be called “The Cold Within”, which is the title of a poem that deals with six freezing people – if all six of them had contributed the stick of wood they had, they would have been able to start a fire and been warm. Instead they all clutched their sticks and did not share because they had biases against the others. Google it, it’s a great poem. So basically my group is going to be about the unconcious biases that could potentially affect our patient care, and how as therapists we can become more self-aware of these biases and thereby less likely to act on them.

E) WE HAD THE COOLEST LAB IN THE ENTIRE WORLD TODAY AND I WOULD POST A PICTURE IF I WASN’T SO LAZY BUT I WILL LATER SO CHECK BACK BUT ANYWAY OMG IT WAS SO NEAT!!! It was a lab on designing quick-fix, cheap/easy solutions – so it focused on things like duct tape, PVC pipe, Acrylic glass, Rubber bands, you name it. We learned how to make a hand grip with only a rubber band, how to cut/bend acrylic glass for various uses, how to use epoxy putty to make grips, how to use dysum (?) aka frictiony rubber drawer liner paper to help grip, how to use pipe insulation to build up grips or items or pad things, how to put wax paper between heavy things to ease friction, how to cut PVC pipe into different configurations, etc etc. I made myself a little flower vase using a piece of acrylic glass, Aquamend epoxy stuff, and PVC pipe. I also used a torch to bend a piece of acrylic glass to serve as a mini upright clipboard, and then I also used PVC pipe with right-angle crookies (I’m so technical) to make a square, and then made grips for it using pipe insulation. I’m going to give that to my friend Suzanne who needs to build up shoulder strength, since you can wrap ankle weights around the pipe and do overhead lifts, etc. OH and we learned about Quick-Grips (mini clamps) and Zip ties (apparently everyone in the world knew of this but me), and more. It was eye-opening and really, really excited me. I could have spent six hours playing with it. Too bad it was only an hour and a half. We also had a challenge of using a strip of duct tape, 15 pieces of dry spaghetti, and two rubber bands, and making as long a “rope” as possible going from the end of the table but not touching the ground. We followed the law but bended the rules. Or maybe I mean bent. Grammar angers me. We almost won by having the longest strip but it broke right as he was going to measure it. 🙁 It was so cool.

F) The same professor who taught the earlier class sat down with me over an hour today and helped me understand an SPSS statistics lab we had done. It really “clicked” and helped me a LOT. If it weren’t for hating statistics so much, I would have strongly considered a PhD program.

G) That’s probably enough nuggets of joy (that phrase makes me gag but it also makes me laugh), so I am going to stop for now. It also occurred to me I want to write a post about study tips, so um, yeah, maybe that will be Monday’s topic! Oh my goodness, I bet y’all are already on pins and needles waiting for that post. Oh wait, maybe that’s your paresthesias…

Update: Obviously, I added in the pictures.

Aug 24, 2007 | Category: Occupational Therapy | Comments: 1