Tag: pediatrics

Posted on in occupational therapy

Three Weeks Down as a Pediatric Occupational Therapist!

Hello Renrenspeakers! How is everyone doing? Long time, no type! I am so glad that the weather has FINALLY cooled off. I have returned my fuzzy socks and sweats as my go-to loungewear. I am about three weeks in as an official OTR/L in an outpatient pediatric clinic with some home health. So far, it has been such a wonderful experience! Lemme update yall on my journey as a new grad thus far.

As a new grad OT, there is a huge learning curve in general. I am constantly consulting other peds OTs I know and look up to, handy dandy Google/ChatGPT, and my old notes/resources from my fieldwork experience and school to refresh my mind on things that I am less familiar with or need additional information on. Heck, the other day, I even pulled out my TherapyEd book I used briefly to study for the NBCOT to verify various developmental milestones and primitive reflexes. Either I blacked it out, but I don’t remember studying as frequently – or might I rephrase, as diligently – when I was in school. I think that I am more willing to seek out this information because first, my license is on the line; and second, I am so new to this, so I want to be the best therapist I can be! I actually do enjoy researching things and discovering how I can spice up my sessions, apply the knowledge that I learn to my tool kit, and educate parents and caregivers for increased carryover (via HEPs, education, etc).

I know my mind is young and fresh, but here are some of the reasons I enjoy the pediatric population thus far:

  1. I always have a story I can recall at the end of the day. My clients say and do the funniest, cutest, and interesting things. I recently had a client who was eating cherry tomatoes for her snack, and she had some remaining juice on her fingers. I laid my jacket down on my chair prior to session starting, and out of nowhere, I saw her walk up to my jacket to wipe her fingers like she would do if she were using a napkin, lol.
  2. I get to be in touch with the youth and channel my inner kid. There are so many things I have discovered that kids like these days, like Ms. Rachel. I also felt super cool working with a client who liked Roblox because I know exactly what that is and could converse about it (shoutout to my little sister, Claudine, for the exposure lol).
  3. I can do a ton of arts and crafts – and they are used therapeutically! First, arts and crafts are my thing. Plus, they can target so many performance areas such as fine motor skills, sensory (tactile), bilateral coordination – the list goes on and on! So far, I have enjoyed finding themed printables or even just creating templates on my iPad and printing them out to use in sessions. I can also upgrade/downgrade them to my discretion. For instance, I can cut pieces of a craft out and have the child bear crawl to them, picking them up 1 by 1 all over the room to also target gross motor skills or any other skills they are working on.
  4. Each client is so different from the next. The variability of clients allow me to get to know many different personalities and learn how to navigate hardships I come across more effectively.
  5. I am constantly on my toes. I never know how the day is going to go as much as I may plan for it, truthfully. Of course, I always hope for a positive, productive session. However, sometimes my clients just might not be feeling an activity as much as I am. I have to be flexible and adaptable so that I am also meeting the client’s needs. This is a skill I am definitely growing in, but knowing that I constantly have to modify my creativity forces me to learn, and therefore, grow as a clinician.

I am thankful that I have a great work environment that supports me and accommodates my needs well. I hear many new grad first job horror stories, and I hate that for us because we are just trying to learn and be our best selves in this new life transition.

The hardest transition for me honestly has been getting used to being an OT. When I first started, I was very anxious because I just did not know what to expect. I had many worries – What is my kids don’t like me? What if my clients and I don’t connect? What is the right way to do therapy? First, there is no right way to do therapy, because everyone’s style is different! Of course, some days are harder than others, but I have to remember to give myself grace. I am three weeks in, NOT 30 years in. And no matter where I am in my years of experience, I will always have room to grow and improve. That is what striving to be a great clinician is all about – recognizing what you don’t know and addressing those gaps. I’ve learned so far that it is okay and even encouraged to ask for help! As much as I try to figure things out on my own, there are going to be so many things that I merely do not know. Again – that is OKAY! I am new to this life! After all, clinicians always say that it took them a year before they finally started really feeling confident and comfortable in what they were doing, so I still have 49 weeks to get there, haha. Fieldwork was a good way to get my feet wet, but that was only the foundation. I get to constantly add to my foundation as a life-long learner. I try to stay grounded as a new grad OT by continuously giving myself grace because again – I am new! I can mess up, I will make mistakes, I will learn from them, and I will grow because of that. Being a peds OT has required me to quickly adopt a Type B personality – one that is more relaxed, easygoing, and flexible when needed.

One thing I noticed that is so easy to fall prey to is going to the store and being tempted to buy anything that I can use for my session, lol. Yesterday, I went to the Dollar Tree and found a TON of items that I could use with my clients to target their goals (shoutout the Dollar Tree for inexpensive stuff, though I do have to side eye a little bit because everything was really marked $1.25. Inflation I guess). My next destination is Goodwill, haha. Currently, there are multiple go-to games stashed away in my car that I did not even touch until starting my job, and I believe that this list will continue to grow at the rate I’m going. I also have a Peds wishlist on Amazon and a growing checklist on my Notes app. Sometimes, it is hard to resist buying new items that my clients might enjoy or benefit from (so help me out with this, fellow peds OTs lol).

The largest downside I’ve faced so far – the getting sick part, eh, not my favorite. I am currently recovering from a bad cold – ah, the joys of working with kids, lol. I remember when I did my first fieldwork at an outpatient peds clinic. I literally lasted 2 weeks, and then BAM. I got COVID for the first time. I was out all week. My immune system is not up to par yet, but I know I will have a beast immune system in no time. 😉 I guess I’ll have to stock up on my vitamins extra hard to try to avoid being sick at all costs.

On my to do list is to continue researching, taking CEUs on my weaker knowledge areas (ex. sensory integration), and honestly just striving to do the best that I can do every day. I also want to work on work-life balance. I want to improve my documentation efficiency, as I notice that I can be a little long-winded when it comes to notes (I blog after all, so writing is inherently a part of my personality trait, lol). If yall have advice or an example of the most efficient notes you’ve written that you’d like to share with me (respect HIPAA, obviously), I am all here for it. 🙂

Thanks for riding this journey with me thus far!

Peace and love,

Irene

Posted on in Occupational Therapy Speaks series

Occupational Therapy Speaks Mini Blog Series – CAPSTONE Edition Part 4: Meet Anna, OTD student!

Hello, Renrenspeakers! I cannot believe it is the LAST SATURDAY of Occupational Therapy Month, let alone April! The month has just flown by like crazy! Part 4 of the Occupational Therapy Speaks mini blog series – CAPSTONE Edition has arrived! On today’s post, we will be learning about Anna, a super kind, warm-spirited colleague of mine who will be incorporating the arts into her capstone project! Today I am so excited to share her story on the blog!

Irene: What is your name/pronouns?

Anna: Anna Seedall (she/her)

Irene: Give us a quick synopsis of who YOU ARE! 

Anna: I am from Idaho Falls, ID. For the last few years, I have been attending school at A.T. Still University in Mesa, AZ. I have 5 sisters, no brothers. My sisters are some of my best friends (and worst critics). I grew up doing ballet and I love the discipline, structure, and grace that it provides. I enjoy hiking, trying new restaurants, paddle boarding, and going to concerts. 

Irene: Why OT? Tell us a little bit about how you found OT and what got you into this field.

Anna: A family friend recommended that I look into OT while I was in high school. She had a son on the autism spectrum and I loved interacting and engaging with him when they would come over. After figuring out what OT actually was, I was hooked. I loved how diverse and personal this profession is.

Irene: Choose three words that come to mind when you think of occupational therapy. Define each word in relation to OT. Why did you choose these three words? 

Anna: Adaptable, creative, and inquisitive

  1. Adaptable- OTs are the most adaptable people I know. I can’t count the times that I have seen a therapist completely switch their session plan to better suit their client’s needs. This is such an important skill! Nothing ever goes as planned and being able to make changes based on what’s best for the client can make a session much more meaningful.
  2. Creative- It doesn’t matter if you are working in pediatrics or at a SNF, you have to be creative! Being able to create activities that are fun and unique to a patient can help build rapport and help them find more meaning in therapy. OTs can take a simple object in the environment and create an entire session to address their client’s goals. Creativity is one of our superpowers. 
  3. Inquisitive- Ever since starting OT school, I find myself asking a lot more questions. Some patients have a hard time opening up and learning how to ask good questions, so this is such an important skill in order to gain necessary insight into a person’s life. I also feel like the more questions we ask, the more clear the root problem becomes. Being a good OT means that we are going to be lifelong learners. By being inquisitive we can learn more about all the complexities of the world and our patients. 

Irene: What is the most beautiful thing about OT to you? 

Anna: There are no limitations to what an OT can do or where OT can take place. We get to work with patients when they are sometimes at their worst and help them transform into the best version of themselves. Patients trust us with the intimate details of their lives and we get to play a role in their journey.

Irene: Let’s delve into your capstone a little more. What is your capstone about, and what initially inspired you to pursue your capstone topic? 

Anna: For my capstone project, I created a sensory-based dance class. I started ballet at 7 years old and danced through high school. I always thought that the skills I learned in dance were much more than learning basic ballet positions and movements. The skills I learned carried over into all parts of my life. It challenged my mental flexibility (and physical flexibility). After watching a summer ballet camp performance for little girls after my first year of OT school, I thought combining OT and dance could be a unique way to combine two things I love and see how they can work together. After learning more about the sensory system in my pediatric class, I knew that specifically looking at how a sensory-based dance class could improve self-regulation was the route I should take. During my preliminary research stages, I realized how few opportunities children with sensory processing disorders or even adaptive needs had to engage in extracurricular activities, especially in my community.

Irene: What has been one win during your capstone and one aspect that has been difficult for you during this capstone process? 

Anna: There have been several wins, it’s hard to narrow it down to just one! My class filled up within the first week of advertising, which meant that there was a need in my community for a project like this. Parents emailed me weekly answering questions about their child’s self-regulation skills after our weekly class. I have had some really positive feedback about how their child can better identify their emotions or engage in a breathing technique that we learned during class. It is super rewarding to see that they are learning and able to translate the skills into other settings. It is also such a big win to see how much fun my little dancers are having. They love coming and it’s so much fun to watch them engage with peers, improve in coordination, and gain confidence.

The hardest part has been creating an environment where everyone can thrive and enjoy class. Some of my students are sensory seekers and love running and making loud noises. Others are very sensitive to a lot of stimuli. Figuring out how to set up the environment and how to create and enforce boundaries that allow everyone to participate and have a positive experience has been a challenge. 

Irene: For future students pursuing their capstone journey, what advice would you give them? 

Anna: OT can fit anywhere and everywhere! Do something that you are interested in and passionate about. You spend A LOT of time researching, writing, re-researching, rewriting, and implementing your project. Don’t settle for an idea or placement that you are not excited about. Be willing to be flexible, everything will fall into place. Don’t stress too much about perfection, you will end up redoing and rewriting your project plan, needs assessment, and all the other components multiple times as things change. Your professor will help you fill in the missing gaps. This experience is something that should be uniquely you and set you apart from other students.

Irene: What have you learned about yourself through your capstone experience?

Anna: I have learned that I am creative and that I am adaptable. There have been so many times that my class plan did not go as expected. But when there are 8 kids in a class, you have to be quick and creative on how to adapt the plan to keep everyone engaged and participating.

Irene:  What are your plans for the future of OT?

Anna: For now, I’m just excited to graduate, pass the board exam, get into the field, find mentors, and gain experience. I love that OT is a career where we will constantly be learning. As I learn more, I imagine that I will find issues, disparities, or topics that I am passionate about and will want to make a difference in whatever community or facility I am at. Ultimately, I think the most impactful way to revolutionize the field of OT is to help change a patient’s life, and that is an opportunity that we will have every day.

Irene: Can folks connect with you to learn more about you/support you? If so, please drop your social media info and other creative pursuits down below!

Anna: You can shoot me an email at sa207133@atsu.edu or on Instagram @annaseedall!

—

Anna, thank you so much for sharing your story! Using your dance background as a ballerina to make an impact on sensory regulation for the kiddos in your home community is such a cool and unique take on expanding our roles as OTs. Dance is a great way to help regulate your system in general, so being able to incorporate your passions into this capstone experience is so beautiful. It seems like you made a strong bond with your participants, and that you learned a lot from them as well! Anna, your capstone just further illustrates how expansive OT can be and how our strengths and experiences can continue to help the clients that we work with engage in meaningful, important occupations.

Renrenspeakers, can you believe it? This is the end of the Occupational Therapy Speaks mini blog series – CAPSTONE Edition! I am so thankful that my peers were able to share their stories, journeys, and experiences as occupational therapists in the making with us on the blog. I am telling yall, these are pioneers who are already making an incredible mark in this profession. Please connect with each and every one of them, as they are a wealth of knowledge.

Continue to celebrate Occupational Therapy Month! If you know a person in OT, reach out to them and thank them for all that they do! Capstone students are some of the most influential, aspiring leaders of tomorrow, so if you are a capstone student, make your capstone project uniquely yours, like Anna said! 🙂 Till next time, Renrenspeakers!

Peace and love,

Irene

    Posted on in occupational therapy

    First Week as a Working Gal Reflection  

    Hello, Renrenspeakers! Happy Saturday! Can you believe how fast the month has been flying by? We are officially in the spring season! So much has changed in my academic career since last week. Last week, I was finishing up my last finals EVER and preparing to transition to my clinical rotations. I am happy to announce that I have completed the first week of my clinical rotations. This galie is 1/12 weeks down from being a pediatric occupational therapist, woohoo! (Might I note, without the actual license nor the pay, haha!) 

    The last ten weeks of school before starting my internship were ones that honestly burnt me out. I know I say I am always burnt out, but every semester is different. This semester required so much writing that I was pumping out at least 2-3 writing assignments every week while developing my capstone project AND preparing for my internship. Just get through it was literally my anthem this semester, and though it did not feel like it during that moment, I did get through it somehow! I honestly am kinda impressed with my ability to pump out back-to-back essays at this rate. It has been soooo nice coming home and not having to write essays or study or do homework for hours on end. I finally am feeling a healthy work-life balance, at least for now. Anyway, let me get back to the more exciting part of this post! 

    So, I started my internship this week at a pediatric outpatient clinic. I felt a lot of emotions before starting – mostly excitement, but nervous anticipation of what was to come. I think I felt more comfortable going in because I visited my clinical instructor (CI) about two weeks before starting my internship, and it was one of the best things I could have done to calm my nerves. If you know a little about me, I am kinda a perfectionist, and I like to plan for things ahead of time. Yes, I note that the perfectionist thing is something that I have to work on, so I have been way more flexible with it and have learned to release some control – though I admit, I still have a long way to go. But no one’s perfect, right? When I visited my site, I got to observe a session and then chat with my CI and site coordinator who were both very kind and supportive of my hesitancies. There, I felt more empowered to start my internship with a positive, hopeful mindset.

    During my first week, I have already learned a ton about the pediatric population. This has been an opportunity to put my learning in the classroom to the test and see how this translates to a natural setting with actual clients. So far, I do feel like my pediatrics course has prepared me well to take on this setting successfully. Working in an outpatient pediatric clinic so far has been such a fun and rewarding experience. I have always had an interest in working with the pediatric population and not gonna lie, I think the kids like me LOL, so I think that this site is a great fit for me thus far. I have met so many new little friends who embody so much excitement and joy. Kids are so funny, and they say the wildest things. Rapport building is instrumental to working with any client. For peds, I have had to pair myself as a super fun, energetic older friend to get the kiddos’ buy-in to therapy. Sometimes, it does put me out of my comfort zone to tap into my creative, child-like demeanor, but hey, I will do anything for therapy to be productive. The days go quickly for me, meaning that I am either getting a lot of work done, I am truly enjoying my time, or probably both! 

    My Passion Planner gave me the following quote of the week which was absolutely fitting to how I should approach this 12-week rotation: Every artist was first an amateur by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Then, my week’s challenge was the following: Whenever you find yourself thinking that your goal is impossible, remember that all experts were once beginners. Take each mistake as a chance to learn and soon enough you, too, will succeed. Shoot, it is like my planner KNEW exactly how pivotal this week would be for me! I think that the combination of knowing that God’s got me and this quote of the week kept me stress-free, grounded, and confident for the week. I was in awe of how natural and fluid my CI’s therapy sessions were and was thinking about how much I had to learn and master in my 12 weeks of fieldwork. However, I constantly recentered myself when doubt started to creep in and reminded myself that she has so many years of experience and I am a baby clinician who will one day be an expert just like my CI. Thus, this week has been a very positive one filled with tons of learning and growth just from reframing my mindset to be one that uses mistakes to my advantage so that I can strive to be better in the future.

    This upcoming week will allow me to start to lead more treatment sessions and really put my clinical skills to the test. Wish me luck! Though it is nerve-racking, I am hopeful to learn the skills necessary to be a great student pediatric occupational therapist. Cheers to fieldwork!

    Peace and love,

    Irene