Week #3

I have a lot going on right now..... I'll make subheadings for your/my convenience...

Level I Fieldwork- Week 1

On Wednesday I began my first Level I fieldwork placement. I'm at a special needs school with children ages 3-21. The school is absolutely enormous and provides services for children diagnosed with autism, CP, PDD, and multiple disabilities. Ethically and legally I can't give a lot of detail about the kids I saw, but it was an incredible first experience.
My clinical instructor, Angie, is just fantastic. It's easy to see that she loves her job & she knows how to help these kids. During my first day, I pretty much observed her in action, sat in on her treatment groups, as well as an IEP meeting, took lots of notes and asked questions. My CI works in the transitional area, which is adolescents ages 13-21, I'm not sure how hands-on I'll be getting during Level I, but hopefully I'll get a little taste of what it'd be like working in that setting.
I was a little anxious before starting, but I felt comfortable by the end of the day. It was a little emotionally overwhelming for me (maybe I was overstimulated?), it can be difficult for me to separate myself emotionally sometimes and I went home my head was spinning for a while.
I'm going to make the most of this experience though. I really enjoyed the kids and I can almost see myself working in this type of setting. . . I just don't know yet.

Psych

Yesterday I went on a tour of a psychiatric hospital and I sat in on an art treatment class. I was not able to observe an OT treatment session because they work with more severe cases, which may have been unsafe for us students to observe. That's scary.
I had an image of what a psychiatric hospital would look like before I went there, and it was exactly what I expected.
Again, I can't give too much detail, but what I learned is that I am not interested in working in that type of setting. I am definitely interested in mental health and mental illness, heck, I have a degree in psychology! I just would not want to work in this type of place, it was more of a prison than a hospital to me.
In the art therapy class I joined, we made heart valentines with stick-on foam hearts, letters, etc. The leader (art therapist?) was asking them questions about what the experience reminded them of during their childhood.... It was interesting to say the least.

Circle of Friends

Tomorrow I re-start my group with my little friends who have autism! Yay!

Classes

OT In Mental Health: This is a continuation of my class last semester, Psychosocial clinical conditions. In this class we are doing qualitative and quantitative article reviews, we are learning MANY assessment tools and how to administer them, and we are running groups for adults with mental illness to teach them many skills so that they can return to occupations they find important.
Research Methods: This is the first research class out of 3 we'll be having. We're critiquing research articles, and by the end of the semester we'll be writing our own research proposal which we'll be implementing in the subsequent semesters. We're learning statistical analysis, validity measurements, confounds, etc.
Pediatric Assessment: This is pediatric semester, so there are 2 ped classes. This one is obviously about the evaluations and assessments we'll be performing as clinicians. We're learning OT/OTA role differences, typical vs. atypical development (physical, cognitive, social, etc), as well as standardized evaluations we'll be performing. We're also learning how we can assess specific skills using everyday objects and toys.
Pediatric Intervention: Right now in this class we're learning about age appropriate skills and the therapeutic activities we can do to facilitate the development of these skills. We're learning activity analysis, as well as grading and adaptation to make activities more functional for pediatrics.
OT Skills II: This years skill class focuses on activity analysis. This week we made birdhouses out of wood and painted them. Afterward, we looked at the activity to analyze all of the component parts involved and what client factors need to be considered when doing this activity. For example, could a person with one arm be able to do this? How would we modify it for a person with poor fine motor control?

Graduate Assistantship

This semester I'm doing 8 credits for my GA. Along with running my group on Saturdays I am trying to implement a mentoring program for first year incoming OT students. I'm not sure how that's going to turn out, but I'm working on it.

Work

I'm still working at the hospital every other Sunday for right now.

So that's it for me right now! I'm busy...... but it's time to sleep!

Patti