I haven't blogged in a long time, so this is just a hodge podge of things I've meant to discuss.
Moving, finding a job: I just moved back to San Diego, CA after ten years of living in the South. People would ask me if I had a job lined up and I'd confidently reply that no, I didn't, but it would be easy to find one. As it turns out, that may be true if I'm not picky. But I'm really picky. My eventual goal is to end up as a NICU/SCU therapist (and then eventually a PhD but that's another story). In order to reach that goal I need to get a pediatric job, as I spent my first year in more general practice. It turns out that there aren't nearly as many pediatric openings in the area as I would have guessed/hoped. I think I looked at least 30 different job sites today, and got somewhat discouraged (I've been searching on and off for months - I just got back from a 7 week stint in Bogota, Colombia to work on my Spanish so I was searching from afar). Many of the pediatric positions that are most appealing are in very private clinics that don't need any OTs, and/or they need only part-time OTs. I sent out quite a few e-mails tonight and I guess we'll see what this week brings! :) I'd consider working with adult populations IF - and this is a big IF - I could be guaranteed some mentorship! I've discovered that unfortunately, places sometimes known for their mentorship, end up unable to provide it due to staff shortages, the poor economy, etc. I've experienced the feeling of being thrown the wolves, writing my notes at the end of the day with quiet tears running down my face from frustration, and I don't want to experience it again if at all possible. But I am also part of the overly-idealistic generation that thinks jobs should be handed to us on a silver platter, and that they should be perfect....soo....gotta deal with reality. Sometimes I wish I were still a student so I could get away with more observation! I loooove observation.
Blogging: I've struggled this last year with blogging as a practitioner due to all the accompanying HIPAA issues - but I still get e-mails from people about to enter OT school, telling me that it was my blog that helped them make the decision to enter school - they were reading my archives from years ago when I was an OT student and posting frequent, detailed journals about OT school. Those e-mails always make my day and I wish more people blogged regularly about their daily life as an OT student or therapist (or consumer). You never know who it might affect! So even if you think nobody is reading...keep on. It's good for you and may be good for people you don't know about!
OT in a book: In other news, the recently published fiction book "Room" about a little boy who grows up in a small room, briefly mentions OT. In the book, the doctor mentions an OT would be ideal for treating the little boy. Of course that doesn't happen but I'm impressed they even mentioned it, albeit a single sentence!The author also does an amazing job of describing the type of sensory deficits a child would have after growing up in a small room. The book is a great read and I recommend it highly. There needs to be a running list of books that mention OT - there is a surprisingly large amount of them.
Low vision: I got a Kindle for Christmas last year, perfect for travelling. The Kindle has the option of enlarging font size pretty significantly. For people who love to read but don't want to deal with monstrous big-print books, the Kindle (and perhaps other similar devices although I'm not familiar with them) might be a good solution. :) It also has a beta audio book feature, where you can listen to (most) of your books read by a monotone computer voice. It has some odd quirks and it's not ideal, but considering how expensive audio books are, it's possibly better than nothing. :)
OTD: I saw that St Augustine has a transitional OTD program and they now have a San Diego campus, so I'm waiting to hear whether it's available in SD. It appears to be at least 13,000 dollars. I just got my MOT in 2009. I haven't seen a lot of fuss over the difference between a MOT/OTD, so I am wondering if it's worth the money. Especially if I eventually want to go for a PhD program anyway. Thoughts???
PhD: How many years of clinical OT should a person have before applying for a PhD program? One would think at least a few years experience, right? Hmm.
Alright, that's enough pondering. In my next post I hope to talk more about my seven weeks in Bogota, Colombia, where I got to observe 4x a week at a rehab clinic that had a lot of land mine victims. It was interesting to see OT in a third world country. For example, they didn't use thermoplastic material to make their splint because it is too expensive. Instead they used plaster of paris to mold the splint, then sent it off to O&P to have it filled in with polyethylene. They also had a LOT of people with UE amputations due to work accidents and land mines. They also saw a lot of kids with really severe CP - worst I have ever seen - for wheelchair fittings. They also don't have HIPAA like we do - patients would ask the therapist about other patients all the time, and it was perfectly acceptable (within reason of course). Kind of refreshing in some ways, also kind of scary. The therapists were AMAZING and I was impressed. They also had to work 48 hours a week instead of 40, since in Colombia, that's the norm. Yuck! Anyway, it was a wonderful experience. More later....
Thanks for putting up with the rambling....hopefully none of you all developed ocular neuropathy from it. Any thoughts/advice on any of the above questions would be appreciated.
Karen
Posted
Dec 30 2010, 03:17 AM
by
Karen