OT in Progress

When thinking about the future of being an occupational therapist, a setting I have always seen myself working in is pediatrics. I have always loved to hang out with kids and get to know them better and help them do whatever it is they want to do. At least half of my shadowing hours came from St. Louis Children's Specialty Rehab Center, so it was all based around children and adolescents. I had so much fun here seeing all different types of interventions and watching the therapists I shadowed under use their skills, creativity, and different way of communicating to assist their clients in meeting their goals or at least working towards them. Even though I have always loved this setting, I am still definitely open to other types of settings. I am hoping to get a better grasp of what area I want to practice in after learning more about the many different types of settings and after gaining experience with wherever I end up doing my fieldwork assignments.

An interesting thing from the 50s era presentation that stuck out to me was the AOTA Award of Merit. The award was established in 1950 and Eva Otto Munzeheimer was the first person to receive it. The award is given to someone who represents the profession of occupational therapy on a global level. This was an interesting thing for me to learn about because I did not know this award even existed. It inspires me even more to learn, educate, and advocate for OT. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was something that I liked learning about from the 70s era. This act began the removal of discrimination towards individuals with disabilities in federally funded programs. This meant that individuals with disabilities were more able to enter the workplace and had better access to education. This is important to me because I believe all people should have the right to work and receive an education and ultimately, do the things of typical everyday life. One last thing that stood out to me was...

Dr. Keisling’s lecture over the history of disabilities was very informative and eye-opening. While I knew some general information regarding the history of disabilities, I did not realize how dark a lot of it was. I was shocked to learn that people who have disabilities were often grouped together with criminals and prisoners, and therefore, treated the same way. These individuals were institutionalized, mostly involuntarily, and then treated poorly due to overcrowding, neglect, and bad living conditions. Over the past 100 years, and especially in the past couple decades, knowledge and acceptance of disabilities have come a long way, but there is still definitely room for improvement. I believe that knowing the history of disabilities and how these individuals were treated in the past will help me to become a more empathetic occupational therapist and learn to better advocate for those in this population.  An individual Dr. Keisling taught us about that really made an impact on...