3-Dimensions

I have been reflecting on my internship as a over-all experience as I get closer to being done with my first fieldwork experience. Everything that people say about learning on the job being valuable experience is true. I feel I have a more complete picture of what occupational therapy is about.

In school we learn about different diagnosis, treatment approaches, therapeutic use of self, and many other 2-dimensional aspects of treatment. However, I am realizing that OT is 3-D experience, not just the client being multi-dimensional, but also the work place.

In a person, you have their diagnosis, con-current diagnoses, the family, the social and medical history among other dimensions. In the work place you have schedules, the people you work with (manager, your manager's manger, doctors, nurses, therapists, etc), documentation, billing payable time, among many other sifting and changing parameters. It's not so simple as just going in a treating a diagnosis or even the person, most aspects of a person and a work-place come into play every treatment session.

I've really had to learn be mentally flexible and roll with the punches (sometimes it feels like I'm getting punched). I'm still getting the hang of it, and I really feel like a beginner. There are times when I feel I should know how all these parameters should fall into place. When I make mistakes juggling parameters, or seeing the 3-D of a person or work place, can make some days frustrating.

Despite all my growing pains, I know in my heart that I have found my life's work. I will continue to persevere in my journey, I've come this far...

Active learner

Interesting that my last blog was titled "taking a backseat", since that's exactly what I feel I had been doing last week at my internship. I had a really rough week last week, one that I hope to never endure again. I was getting in trouble with documentation, my group, my time management, and pt care. What was going on with me?! I realized on Friday, when I talked to the director of rehab, that I had been taking a backseat on my learning. I was waiting for my supervisor to tell me what and how to do certain things or how to arrive at mastering this internship. I would hear of other student interns having manuals and talks everyday with their supervisors and overall more hand-holding than I'm getting at my fieldwork site. I put the blame on her, felt frustrated that I was being left to fend for myself and make all these mistakes. Here's what I learned: I needed to be more proactive about my learning at this facility. I need to practice writing notes, giving evaluations, and taking precautions to ensure that I give excellent quality care to everyone I treat.

As I realize this crucial mistake in my learning experience, I hope that I can now move forward to really be an "OT Student". I'm still not an OT. I'm just the intern; I need to be humble, ask for help, and accept criticism with acknowledgement of my learning.

taking a backseat

I have something that I am learning about myself as a person in this internship. That is when someone wants to criticize me, my reaction is to explain my reasoning. However, that comes off as being defensive. How do I learn to shut my mouth and take what is being told to me? By acknowledging this aspect of my personality, I hope that I can be more mindful when someone calls me out. The person saying whatever they are saying has a reason and their perceptive should be respected. I need to exercise more self control.

In the last week or two (ever since I left a towel on the floor in the shower room) I have been heavily supervised. When that is the case, I somehow end up making more mistakes. I know that I have performance anxiety and so when someone is really testing and observing me, I constantly screw up. Today that happened and I attribute part of my mistakes to not having control over my schedule. Since I am really supervised my supervisor basically tells me what will or won't work for her in her schedule. I didn't have enough time to prepare for my group, get my notes done, and do an Individual treatment session in one hour. As a result, I was running late, and I forgot to get equipment. Where's your head at Lee-Anne? I've got to get it together, and be able to change gears as I shift into the next activity of my day. (Justification/Defense: I had a pt in the morning who was crying about having to stay at MC and I was trying to resolve the issue).

Sigh, two more days left for the week.

Hard day or hard career?

It's really hard to have perspective when this internship is the only *real* experience I have with practicing OT. There are certain aspects of OT that I really thrive at, and others that are continually hard for me. I guess that is true with every job, but I am striving to find out what it is that is limiting me.
Here are some of the things I think it could me: poor memorization, not fully understanding what is being asked of me, not understanding a core concept and how to do it, a difference in working styles (and not fully knowing what mine is), decreased brain power at the end of the day, less structure than I'm used to, or maybe the setting (skilled nursing) isn't right for me.
Ok you might be wondering what the heck I'm talking about... Documentation.