What OTs really are...

"We're activity analysts."

This is a phrase a fellow OT at the rehab clinic always said. Behind all the fancy words that describe us as "therapeutic" and "holistic" etc. Whether you graduated with a BSc or an MSc in OT, at the very heart of our profession, we are Activity Analysts!

Much of my placements have been about breaking things down into the smaller steps which has led me to really appreciate our skills in activity analysis. I am a pretty detailed oriented person in my own everyday life, so applying a more critical mind to looking at other's occupations comes naturally to me. But beyond looking at the details, we need to know where to focus our activity analysis on before looking deeper to discover the how's and then seek to understand the why's behind an activity... And this takes a lot more brain power than it does visual acuity. We've got to use that OT lens of ours! Which leads me to this quote:

Thus, the task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen, but to think what nobody has yet thought about what which everybody sees --Arthur Schopenhauer

I couldn't agree more!

Funny, Familiar, Forgotten Feelings

Hong Kong is a long way from home. A 16 hour direct flight away and 12 hours ahead from what's familiar to me. Even so, I've been able to find some familiar and forgotten feelings despite my rough start to my Hong Kong placement experience. So no, maybe it hasn't been so "funny", but I hope someone gets the song reference.

You are Here. (Almost to the Big Buddha!)

Same Material means Less Friction

A lesson in physics and cultural competency.

A middle aged female patient comes in with carpal tunnel syndrome, and the OT decides to treat here with a static wrist splint. I'm watching from the side, because at the time, I was practicing how to mold my own paddle splint (which was and is still going terribly...). When it came time to start making her cast, the patient says that she won't be able to take off her jade bangle. She had put it on in her younger days and after two pregnancies, her wrist had grown and now the bangle no longer comes off. She tells the OT that she's fine with going home to have her husband brake the bracelet off with a hammer, but the concern was that it would be done in an unsafe manner, potentially causing further harm to the patient's wrist. My preceptor is called in to help take it off.

Congee vs. Soup vs. Water

A lesson in burns and cultural competency.

As my preceptor was teaching me about burns management, he asks me the question of whether having hot water splashed on you or hot soup would hurt more. And I responded...

Going international for Level III placement

Why an international placement? I've been asked this question many times, both in Canada and Hong Kong (HK), by family, friends and colleagues. This moment right now is a good chance to remind myself of why I chose to be on the other side of the world for my final placement. Especially since I will be writing my placement goals soon!

Why go international?

• To be fully immersed in the Chinese culture, as more than just a tourist.
• As a CBC (Chinese born Canadian), I've only identify with my Chinese culture through my parents. This is a chance for me to really experience Chinese culture and better develop a sense of what "Being Chinese" means to me.
• To see and learn about how OTs work on the other side of the world.
• To learn about the healthcare system and Hong Kong.
• To continue to gain self-awareness about what kind of OT I want to be.
• To develop my skills in cultural competency.

Stop being the Therapy Student, and think like a Student Therapist

Wisdom from my preceptor during my midterm evaluation! (This blog post is about 3 weeks late...)

My preceptor has a way with words and this phrase is just so fitting to where I am in my professional career. The reality of being in my second last fieldwork placement and with only one school term left could not have been put in more concise terms!  But until my preceptor spoke those words, I was still very much thinking of myself as "just" a student studying occupational therapy.

Saying Less, More Often and Ask, Don't Tell

Although my placement population is considered "pediatrics" on paper, the reality is that I work with families and not just the individual child. You can teach, coach, and make all the recommendations you want with preschoolers, but chances are, the three year old has minimal understanding of what you tell them. The reality is: your recommendations aren't high on their priority list (which probably consists of: Play, play, eat, play, play, sleep). Who can blame them? So for all those who want to work with kids, keep in mind that you'll really be working with the parents and their family as much as you get to interact with the kiddies. =)

This reality hasn't deterred me from pursuing OT work with kids. It's only made me realize the skills that I need to work on in order to work more effectively with these families to really provide family-centered care.

An Intervention that doesn't "work out" is an Assessment

I thought I'd start noting some tidbits of wisdom and thoughts from my placement experience. I had the intention of doing this during my last placement, but I never found the time to follow through with it. So I'm buckling down to write some of this tidbits down from this placement.

"An intervention that doesn't work out is an assessment": something wise that my current placement preceptor told me during the first two weeks of placement. I think it applies to any clinical setting and population that OTs work with, but especially applicable to children and their families. If we can see "failed" interventions as an assessment, then we will putting ourselves in a mindset that is ready to learn from our clients! Better yet, we should carry this experimental mindset with each intervention plan. If we put aside our own agendas and idealized results, there will be more possibilities available for our clients.

Sibshop Saturday

Working with kids has been something I've wanted to do for the longest time. I don't know when it started. I'm the oldest child in my family but it's Definitely Not my siblings who made me want to be around kids. (No offence guys!) Anywho, I looked up some volunteer opportunities in my area that involved working with children and I was lucky enough to find one thing!

Just last weekend, I volunteered for a "Sibshop" hosted by the Children's Therapy Service in Barrie this past weekend. This was the first ever "Sibshop", a workshop for children who have siblings with developmental disabilities, that they were holding. Our crew was quite small: just me, two high school student volunteers and the woman leading the session from the Children's Therapy Service. 10 children from ages 6-10 joined us for some games and group discussion that afternoon and it was lots of fun! I was literally playing games with children for an afternoon. =)

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others

The title of this blog post is a quote by Gautama Buddha that I really like. I've started to read Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's‎ Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, and I really hope I can follow through and finish this book before classes start. I've been meaning to read this book For The Longest Time ♫! (Yes, in my mind, I sang that last bit.) Not only because the concept is so relevant to OT work, but also because Flow has always been of interest to me ever since I first heard of it in my undergrad Positive Psychology class. Recent meet ups with friends and hearing about everyone at different stages of their lives (masters student vs. recent graduate and soon to be professional with a secured position vs. traveller on contract employment vs. newly accepted Med student whose relationship will soon be long distance etc.) has gotten me to rethink, no, more like Revisit my own concept of Happiness.

Governments taking citizen's well-being seriously?!

As I procrastinate doing my own writing (letter writing, blog writing...), I've been doing some reading and stumbled upon an online magazine called Aeon.

CBT is not the answer to a "Good Life",
but having these programs accessible is a good idea!

One of the pieces, in their "Living Together" section is titled Their Good Life. Jules Evans writes about governments now providing free psychotherapy to citizens. An initiative called Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) has been launched in the UK, with hopes of training 6000 new therapists in talking therapies such as CBT! Sweden is also following their lead with a similar program.

I thought this was very much related to occupational therapy and it made me giddy with excitement on the inside. =)

How do I Express Myself Creatively?

[Lab 10- May 24: Enabling Change Through Expression]

My Painted Representation of My Inner Self

Definitely one of the most enjoyable PE Labs yet! I felt like a little kid again! (The last time I said that was when our family went to Universal Studios and Disney World)

In this lab, we engaged in creating portraits of our inner self, what we think others perceive us as, and express our emotions through painting, sculpture and music respectively. When was the last time I did any of this type of personal expression??

Photography Allows Me to Express Emotions 
that I Can't Find Words For.

When I think of what I do for artistic expression, I think back to my days in the high school band. Music was my first and foremost way of expressing myself. I was part of my high school band as a flute player for 4 straight years, was also in the violin ensemble for one year and learned to play the alto saxophone so I could play in the jazz band one year. Sadly my engagement with music as a musician stopped after I auditioned for the wind ensemble in university and didn't get in.

Having the Client's Best Interests at Heart

[Lab 9- May 17: CEC- Lived experience interviews]

In our lab today, we were given the choice of 3 assessments to administer to a volunteer client at the Clinical  Education Center: Role Checklist, Interest Checklist and the Engagement in Meaningful Activities Survey (EMAS). Immediately, my past failure in administering the Interest Checklist floated into the forefront of my mind and I did not want to do the Interest Checklist. However, I ended up choosing the Interest Checklist because I wanted to, for lack of better words, "overcome my fear" of administering it. Let me take this moment to reflect on my first experience with the Interest Checklist:

Role Playing a Psychoeducation Group

[Lab 7- May 3: Enabling Occupation Through Learning]

Engaging in role-playing in this lab really made me think about the emotional experiences of the parents of those who had their first incident of psychosis and/or going through their own recovery process. I think that my role as the eldest child and older sister to three siblings helped me settle into the role of "Patrick's mother". After our session, I felt oddly relaxed. The students who played the OTs in our psychoeducation group did a great job of leading and facilitating the discussion. All of our group members actively participated and volunteer to share their experiences, so the group ran very smoothly.

Promises to Myself

A new year! This is usually the time of the year when I have the typical New Year’s Resolutions that include "Go to the gym more" and "Smile more" in the back of my mind. Last year, I actually wrote a list of things to keep in mind for the year (I'm pasting it directly from the post-it note on my computer desktop):

• Less Critical (and Defensive?)
• More Accepting of Criticism/Others' Opinions (open-mindedness)
• Run 2x a week (short, 5K & longer) >>10K in April/May/Summer!

I'll be honest and admit that none of these have been fully accomplished. That's not to say that I haven't become more open-minded or less critical... I like to think that I have become more open-minded and less critical/defensive, but can I say these goals were successfully achieved if I can't quantify these traits? I have yet to run that 10K, and although that goal is definitely quantifiable, it wasn't specific at all. So this year, I will make SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) goals! Aha! Applying a concept learned in OT class to real life! XD

One of the classes that I had in my first term of OT was one called “The Learned Experience of Disability” where we learned about different types of disabilities and their respective experiences in a way that lectures and textbooks couldn't teach us. We were each paired with another OT classmate and assigned a volunteer from the local community who had a disability. This volunteer was known as our mentor, and we spent a few hours each week with them, learning about their life and experiences with a disability. From this class, I learned about more than the one disability that my mentor had, but also about the disabilities that the mentors my fellow peers had. I think many of my classmates would agree that our learning about disabilities shouldn't stop there. So I've decided to make a SMART goal to motivate myself to keep learning:

>>By the start of next year’s classes in September, I will have read at least four books on the lived experiences of four different types of disability/illnesses.

And here's one non-OT SMART goal:

>>Run the Beat Beethoven 8km run (8km within 50 minutes) in June this year.

I can do this!! ^_^

Christmas... Time to get Crafty!

DIY Bird Nest pendant necklaces by Sarah Ortega

DIY Rope Bangles by Martha Stewart

From what I remember, I loved doing arts and crafts when I was a kid in elementary school. And as I grew older, I still enjoyed learning origami, and would make the red and green paper chains and random crafts to decorate our home and tree for the Christmas holidays. As a young teenager, I spent quite a bit of time learning to make different types of friendship bracelets. (I guess that's pretty typical hobby for young girls.) Even as a young adult, crafts have been something that I enjoy. But now I only do it for others. The past few years in university were very busy, but I've made cards,  scrapbooks and gift boxes for friends. (Disclaimer, I made them to the best of my abilities. I am definitely no Martha Stewart.) I love the opportunity to   get creative and make a one-of-a-kind gift to show my appreciation for their presence in my life. ^_^

DIY Charlie Brown Ornaments by Jessica

This year for Christmas, I am an unemployed student (I worked during high school and a majority of my undergrad). My close friends are also still students, so some of us have decided to make it a hand-made gift exchange this year. I am SUPER excited because it's something I've always done... but only on random occasions. I've looked up some nifty craft ideas (you can see that jewelry and ornaments are of particular interest to me ;P) that I might use for my friends... or just to make for myself if I have time over the break. =)

Makes me think that I'm going back to my "roots": as a little girl and as an OT! (I just had an exam that required me to study some history of OT, and arts and crafts was our expertise back in the 1920s!)

DIY Embroidered Gift Box from Etsy

You know when you think back to what you wanted to be when you were a kid? Child me always wanted to be a teacher. But now that I think about how this handmade gift exchange has got me so excited... and how I've been crafty since my childhood... maybe I have always wanted to be an OT! Hahah... XD

"What are you Not doing now that you'd Like to be doing?"

Lazying around... When I should be studying.

The title of this post is a question that OTs may find themselves asking their client in an initial assessment. I haven't used this particular question with my volunteer clients in practice interviews, but I really like how the wording is casual. It makes you think about what you can do for yourself to improve your current circumstance right? I also think it's relative to each and every one of us, no matter what stage of life we are in. =)

At the moment, my answer would be: Studying. Hahaha. XD My first exam is at the end of this week and I find myself doing a little blogging...

So. Why am I starting this blog? Why now?

While procrastinating from studying and looking for light reading, I've come upon some blogs that have made me look again and bookmark them. The concept of keeping a blog, a sort of online reflection journal, has always intrigued me but I've always been a person who has to take a while to decide and a bit slow to warm up to new things. I guess you can say that some of this "light reading" has played a part in motivating and inspiring me to finally start a blog for myself!

I'm currently enjoying the first year of my Masters in Occupational Therapy (MScOT) program and I find myself doing a lot of reflecting. It's partly because some of our courses require a lot of reflection, and also because self-reflection is something I have found myself doing naturally -throughout my life since highschool. Now that I'm just over 3 months into my program, there have been quite a few opportunities and experiences (both in OT and life in general) for me to reflect on. I'd like to use this blog as a way of getting these thoughts and feelings down and to act as a sort of journal to look back on when I graduate to see how much I will have grown (hopefully!). =)

Given my busy school schedule and my general slow-ness in getting my thoughts out in an articulate manner, I don't know how committed I will be to posting... Ah! There I go, setting myself up for failure eh? But I will try. I mean it. I WILL Try my very best! I want to be able to see how my way of thinking will be changed by this OT program and my life experiences along the way.

Reflections. Random musings. Photos. Metaphors of life... Here we go!