A Shadowy Experience

Part of the application for the MOT program reads as follows:

Although not mandatory, it is strongly recommended that applicants volunteer and/or work under the direct supervision of an occupational therapist in at least two areas of practice.

Given the insane competition for spots in the program, I translate that as "You don't have a flaming snowball's chance of getting in unless you do this, you twit."

The wording makes it sound like you have to actually work in the healthcare field, but fortunately for me, this is not the case. It refers to a practice that seems fairly common in the healthcare field called job shadowing. Basically, this means that you watch the healthcare professional (occupational therapist, physician assistant, physical therapist, etc.) do his or her job for a certain number of hours--you act as that person's shadow. Sort of a pre-approved and welcome stalker, if you will.

The exciting news is that I have gotten approval to do 40 hours of job shadowing with an OT at a local children's hospital! Even better, I already volunteer at this hospital anyway, so I don't have to worry about getting fingerprinted, background checked, references checked, etc. I'm already in the system, so it will be easy to reclassify me as an OT department volunteer. I'm scheduled for half-days (some mornings, some afternoons) for the first three weeks of August. EEEEEE!! I am so excited about this. It's a children's hospital, so obviously it will be pediatric OT. I'm not sure if it's all outpatient or if they also do some inpatient (though I am sure I will find out quickly enough). The OT mentioned that they also have feeding groups, something I have read about and am eager to see for myself.

When I asked the OT what I could do to prepare beforehand so that I get the most out of my shadowing experience, she said I should read The Out-of-Sync Child by Carol Kranowitz and review my developmental milestones. (And in this case, "review" actually means "learn on my own from the ground up," since I won't have my lifespan course until the fall, too late to help with this placement.)

At this point, I have no idea what population I want to be working with as an OT. We can work with anyone from newborns to elderly patients in hospice, so we truly work across the entire lifespan. I think shadowing is a good idea, both to give yourself a reality check ("Is this really how I want to spend my days for the foreseeable future?") and to try and narrow down your preferences. This shadowing will let me sample both a population (kids) and an environment (hospital setting). I definitely want to do at least one more shadowing experience next spring or summer. I will obviously want either adults or the elderly as my population and a non-hospital setting (skilled nursing facility? rehab center?) as the environment. But first things first--in a few months, I will get to see what I think of working with pediatric OT patients.