Occupational Therapy Analysis

The first characteristic I received was social, this is the interest of working with people to help them with a variety of needs, such as, educational, physical or mental. This was my highest attribute, and I can see why because I very much enjoy helping individuals with any situation that arises. This trait will be very beneficial in occupational therapy because I will have to be able to interact on a daily basis caring for people’s needs. I will use this characteristic to connect to an individual on different levels and will allow me and my patient to have meaningful connections with each other. In addition, social skills come into play when communicating efficiently with the patient. I am going to have to explain why we are doing a certain
task and how it will help with treatment in the long-run. Social skills are an important part of working with the community and the clients, in order to connect with an individual and aid them throughout therapy. This will be an extremely beneficial skill I will use during occupational therapy in order to make the patient’s time more enjoyable and meaningful.
Secondly, artistic was another attribute.
Although I am not artistic in the painting or music sense, I am artistic when it comes to solving problems differently. This will allow me to solve problems that arise that do not fit the cookie cutter solution. This will be very helpful for occupational therapy because there will be some patients that will not fit the text book solution, and it will be up to myself to find another method to get the patient to the same outcome. A patient can become frustrated if no solution is able to be provided for their current situation. I will need to dig deeper into a problem, to find a solution, that will provide helpful guidance and recovery for the patient. I also want to make a patient’s experience at therapy positive and fun, so with my artistic abilities I can create a creative and knowledgeable plan that will incorporate fun activities that will still help in recovery. I have heard of occupational therapist playing board games and taking patients out fishing to strengthen certain muscles. These are just a few ways how artistic abilities made therapy a more positive experience. This characteristic will help me be creative when forming a plan for a client, and can incorporate activities they find enjoyable that still aid with
rehabilitation.
The last skill I got in my top three traits is investigative, which was a surprise to me. Kuder Journey described this as the skill to work with my mind and do abstract thinking. I always thought I have lacked in this area and usually cannot see the bigger picture if it is not my own. It will definitely have to be a skill I work on because it will come in handy in occupational therapy. I will not be able to directly look into a patient’s body but will have to examine what is wrong from the outside and exercises that will strengthen the area. This is where abstract thinking would come into play because I could visualize the area of interest within the body and create a plan on how to increase mobility. I believe this area will strengthen over time as I work more in the field of occupational therapy and graduate school because I will be fully involved in the program and every day will have to make connections between certain topics to get to a solution.
Integration of Self & Path
Besides my characteristics that support my reasoning for this career choice, the main focus of why I want to be an occupational therapist is to restore people’s lives and impact their life in a positive way.
I always knew I wanted to have a career in helping individuals, I just never knew what it was. I grew up around a hospital because my mom is a doctor and I would always interact with her patients and got to hear how my mom helped their lives so positively. It was eye-opening to know that just one person could have such a direct impact on so many lives. With that in mind, I decided to start doing research on different healthcare fields. After a couple weeks, I came across occupational therapy. I do not know how to describe the feeling, but I was instantly drawn in to this career, and as I researched, the more intrigued I became. I loved the idea of being able to interact with patients and help aid in their recovery. All the patient stories I read talked about how occupational therapy changed their life and how they have such a positive view of therapy afterwards. I believe this is the right career path for me, because it is going to allow me to positively restore people’s lives. If I can directly help someone heal to the best of their ability after a life-altering situation or complication, I would get such an immense amount of satisfaction. I am a very unselfish person and always find it more rewarding to brighten someone else’s day. With occupational therapy, I hope to
make the patients time in rehab more positive by having them participate in fun activities. An example of this is I heard a story of a man trying to gain movement back in his shoulder, so he and his occupational therapist would go fishing and casting the reel helped him gain movement back in his shoulder. I have also heard of therapist playing specific games with their patients that help with the movement they are trying to gain back. Occupational therapy will allow myself to use my imagination and make therapy more fun and positive. This will make it more positive and enjoyable time for the patient, as well as myself, all while helping the individual gain motor movements back. With the end result of restoring that specific task they were having trouble with a month prior. I have seen first-hand how occupational therapy restores lives, by watching my mother’s friend Louis go through it after her stroke. Through occupational therapy she was able to write again and gained part of her life back she lost.
Without movement, a person cannot complete daily task and will depend on someone constantly for help. I want to be the reason why a patient can be more independent and restore their life. By getting a high-quality education, I will be able to provide adequate services to those with rehabilitation issues. I will use the knowledge from my degree and observation experiences to restore a patient’s life to the best of my abilities. My main goal of getting a degree in occupational therapy is to restore people’s lives and a positive way. I will do this by incorporating fun activities into therapy that will help gain back motor movements to make the individual more independent and restore their life.
Action Steps
In order to excel in my future career, there are specific actions steps needed to take place to further my education in graduate school, and to make me more competitive in the occupational therapy field. I have composed five different steps that will aid in this process, the first one being to get a job in the healthcare field. I have already taken steps towards this and created my resume in the career center at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. I listed and gave a brief description of my education background, volunteer work, and jobs I have held. After completion, I logged into SeaWork, a UNCW website that helps students find jobs in the surrounding area, and clicked the link My Job and Internship Search. I narrowed down the search by clicking allied health fields, part-time, and began browsing the available jobs. Within a couple minutes, I found jobs relating to occupational therapy and healthcare. I submitted my resume and application, and by the very next day, I already had two interviews set up for the following week. Since then, I have completed the interviews and now have two jobs lined up for the summer working in the rehabilitation setting. Both jobs deal with rehabilitation and working with the physically and mentally disabled. The first job is with Maximum Healthcare. I will be dealing with an autistic female teenager and teaching her behaviors, formal to society, in order to intergrade her into the workforce. I will spend four days a week, for five hours with her, interacting her with society and doing activities with her, in hopes of teaching her the importance of interaction and communication. The second job is with Lindley Habilitation Services. This is the same aspect as the other job, by bringing out individuals and socializing them with society. This job will only be on weekends, and I will be working with a specific individual. The company has not yet provided information on which case I will be working, but when they do, I will be able to set up a meeting to see if I want on the case or not. These two jobs will give me the opportunity to work with two different individuals and gain knowledge in different aspects of working with the disabled.
To have experience in healthcare will be very beneficial towards my future career as an occupational therapist and when making my resume to apply for graduate school. Occupational therapist deal with a variety of patients with disabilities, so having experience in this specific area will give me insight into my future career and better prepare myself for different situations. I will be working one-on-one with my patients and spending a lot of quality time getting to know them. It will be a learning experience to fully understand how they operate and how to communicate in different ways. This will make me a well-rounded individual and teach me skill sets, such as, communication, compassion and work ethic. Another beneficial factor of having a job in healthcare is when making my resume for graduate school. It is an important factor graduate schools look for when reviewing an application. This will notify the board that I have been gaining experience and knowledge in my undergraduate studies, and that I am interested in the healthcare field. It will make me more competitive, and I will stand-out against the other applicants if I have a well-rounded employment history of working for different healthcare providers.
Besides working in healthcare, another method of increasing my knowledge and work experience for occupational therapy and graduate school is volunteering. The main focus of my volunteering would either be at the hospital or dealing with the community. Although the hospital setting would be ideal to gain more experience in the healthcare industry, I am more focused on a community volunteer program. This way I can have a variety of experience in different areas to make myself more compelling to graduate schools. I have not looked that much into volunteer programs, but over the summer I can do more research on what programs would be a good fit. I would look for different qualities in the program. For instance, how does the program help the community, meaning does it deal with the environment or with citizens. I would be more focused on a program dealing with the citizens of the community because this will give me involvement, interaction, and help improve the quality of life for different individuals. Some places I would be interested in volunteering at is the Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, soup kitchen, senior citizen homes or the Big Sister program. It will allow me to interact with a variety of individuals and become more well-rounded with developing skills, such as, social interactions and bonding. The career center at University of North Carolina Wilmington has excellent resources on different volunteer programs looking for help. Over the summer, I can stop by and see if any programs are in need of assistance. My goal is to volunteer at least once a week for four or five hours. By volunteering I am making myself more competitive for graduate school by showing them I am an active member of the community. It will also add more experience to my resume and give me valuable lessons along the way I can use in occupational therapy, by making connections with different individuals. I can use this skill set when interacting with patients and forming bonds during therapy.
Another action step I need to engage in, is finding graduate schools in Nort