There are so many misconceptions about occupational therapy; we help people find jobs; we only work with hands and upper extremities; we wipe butts all day. None of these are true. It is our job to make sure people, especially patients know this.
The patient I've been seeing with transverse myelitis was a perfect example of this. She was evaled 1/4, the day after I started my fieldwork. I'm about to enter my 7th week of fieldwork, meaning she has been a patient, receiving OT and PT for 7 weeks. Thursday when my CI was sick, I had a full caseload by myself. Some of the other OT's helped me with some treatment ideas since I hadn't seen some of the patients before. When my transverse myelitis patient came in for her afternoon session, Stephanie, another OT, suggested that we stand with her. She has been walking with knee immobilizers and a non-swivel 4 wheel rolling walker in PT. We've been working with her for weeks on UE strength so she is able to use her arms where she once used her legs. When she heard Stephanie say we were going to stand with her, she flat out refused and said, "I have faith in my legs, but I don't have faith in you two." This is not like her. At all. I've never heard her refuse. And she did. Not only that, but she said she didn't have faith in me and Stephanie. I would have said "okay" and picked something else to do, but Stephanie didn't give up. We stood with her. She required a min assist of one to stand, but required two people to be there to block her knees. She seriously popped right up. We did this a few more times, and then she and I started talking. She asked me "Isn't that a PT's job?" I told her, "While PT's tend to focus on walking and standing, they are looking at it for mobility reasons. We, as OT's focus on walking so that you can get in and out of the shower by yourself, you can get on and off the toilet by yourself. You can stand up to pull your pants up. We both focus on LE's but for different reasons." She was shocked that we were trained in helping people stand. That is our fault. That is MY fault. This is exactly why we need to get people up and walking/standing/transferring while they are in therapy. It is OUR responsibility to make sure these misconceptions and stereotypes are broken.
Friday when she came into therapy the first thing she said was, "I need to apologize. I was a crab yesterday, and I shouldn't have been. I didn't know you guys did that [standing] too." That meant more to me than the harsh words she said the day before. She told Stephanie the same thing, and gave her a hug.
Other than that, not much is new. I can't believe that I'm half way done with my first fieldwork. It is going so fast. Crazy.
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