Health & Fitness Tools

What Is An Occupational Therapist?

20th March, 2012 - Posted by health news - No Comments

Perhaps you’ve asked yourself what is an occupational therapist. I asked myself that question several years ago when I was contemplating about my future. The librarian at my high school told me I should look it up so that’s what I did. What I discovered basically changed my life.

This is what I read: An occupational therapists is someone who has received education and training in identifying the effects of traumas (mental, physical, emotional, and developmental) on the human body and mind. But not only do they learn how to identify them, they also learn how to create treatments that will enable the person to recover from the effects of these traumas and, in a situation where the traumas or dysfunctions are too pronounced, they will find a way to make the person’s life easier; to give them a sense of freedom and independence that they might otherwise not have had.

When I learned that, that’s when I decided that’s what I wanted to be.

It wasn’t a walk in the park, however. I had to start right out of high school. I had to choose which graduate program to take, which school had a master’s program in occupational therapy, and then tailor my undergraduate work so I’d meet all the prerequisites of the master’s program.

I was a psychology major. I took all the courses that psych majors had to take, but I also enrolled in chemistry, physics, and biology courses so I’d be well prepared for when I start my master’s in occupational therapy.

As soon as I graduated, I got into the master’s program. It was so much harder than undergraduate work! I took courses in advanced psychology, patient treatment, ethics, and advanced anatomy and physiology. Of course, how could I forget about the 24 weeks that I had to do field work? Upon reflection, I probably would have been discourage and not pursued my training if I was thrown in field work early one. It’s because occupational therapy involved so many things than I realized, but all the studying and courses helped me prepare for it.

Well, I finally finished my master’s degree and within months had taken my certification test, which was a prerequisite for licensure by my state.

My first job as in occupational therapy wasn’t at all like what I had imagined it would be. My specialization was pediatric occupational therapy. I had excellent grades, but zero field work experience save for the field work in my senior year, so I was assigned with a team of occupational therapists who worked with children with cancer. Even though it wasn’t what I expected, I loved my work. As a matter of fact, I’m still on the same team, but now functioning as the head occupational therapist. I develop treatment plans for the kids under my care. The plans I develop for them involve things that will help them recover the motor skills they’ve lost due to cancer. For the terminal kids, I try to help them live their life as fully and as comfortable as possible.

Being an occupational therapist is one of the most challenging jobs there is. And if you want an answer to the question, “What is an occupational therapist?” the simplest answer is this: it’s someone who helps kids face the hand that was dealt with them and helps them live their life to the fullest.