Sunday, May 10, 2009

Touching The Void

There is not much that gets OT students' excitement levels skyrocketing like word that "The List" is up. What first starts as conversation between a few, soon gets overheard and then spreads like wild-fire. Confirmation of the rumour comes when clusters of students congregate by a bulletin board, eagerly pointing at "The List". "The List" is, of course, the list of upcoming work placement allocations. As students of the Master of OT program, we get five work placements, lasting roughly six week each time, interspersed throughout the program. We are also lucky enough to get a certain amount of choice in the location of the placement and the area of specialism. Despite the choices we get, places with willing and available clinicians in the community are not plentiful, so the competition for highly desired placement opportunities is reasonably intense. Even the most altruistic OT students must get a pang of envy on seeing someone else lined up with the placement they really wanted.

I am currently in the second half of my fifth and final placement. At the beginning of the program, we were introduced to a diagram which depicted a series of upwardly progressing steps with accompanying ascending numbers. This represented our journey as OT students progressing up the competency ladder as our knowledge and clinical skills increased. I suppose the second year OT students are now on that final step ready to enter the big bad world of employment and reality. What concerns me somewhat is that thinking back to the diagram, nothing seemed to come after that final step. In fact, rather worryingly, there seemed to be a big drop into nothingness after that final step! Is that what the future holds? Maybe before blindly jumping into this abyss, I should take a moment to reflect on my work placement experiences and see if I'm ready to take the plunge.

I can safely say, with a high degree of confidence, that my work placement experiences have been invaluable. After a few months of school, just when students are beginning to get a little jaded by PowerPoint presentations and group projects, the next placement seems to be just around the corner. Placements are an opportunity to be with clients which is why everyone signed up for the program in the first place. This is extremely motivating. They are a chance to experience a new medical setting and learn some important clinical skills. However, more important than consolidating OT skills, the placements have been useful for opening our eyes to the real world: institutional (dis)organization and the associated politics; budget restrictions and the lack of resources; the challenge of supporting people with disabilities in an able-bodied world; the all-imposing "bottom line" that pervades both public and private health care. This is a pretty depressing list, but I would definitely like to know these things before beginning my career, rather than unintentionally wearing rose-tinted glasses and then getting my bubble sadly burst.

It's not all bad though. From my work placements, I have garnered several reasons to be optimistic: all my preceptors have be first-rate, dedicated professionals - they have been great teachers and skilled clinicians; the "system", despite its faults, is often efficient and provides a high quality of care - judging from my experiences as both a consumer of health services and from the perspective of a prospective health care professional, we are privileged to have a health care system of this high standard. I'm sure many would disagree, but when you look around the world, it could be a lot worse; we are also fortunate to live in an era of research and implementation of evidenced-based practice - advancement in health care is being made all the time and it's an exciting prospect to be jumping into this employment sector; and maybe the best reason to be optimistic is that despite talk of economic downturns and global belt tightening, employment prospects in health care and especially OT seem promising (particularly when compared to other work sectors).

So maybe my evolution from a fledgling OT student to someone nearly ready to drop the M in my current MOT designation, has entailed the removal of the type of blinkers used on racehorses to keep them running straight. Do I feel ready to enter the workforce? No. But I do feel ready to enter a profession which I know will support my learning and professional development and judging from OT's out there in the field, when people ask me in the future, "do you enjoy your job?", I will be able to smile, give a satisfied head nod and say yes. Knowing this, I'm happy to take the plunge...I think.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi there! My name is Rebecca and I'm currently finishing my BA at SFU, and am planning to apply to the OT program at UBC for the Sept 2010 intake. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to write your blog, which I discovered through the UBC OT website. It is informative and interesting - especially to a prospective OT student. I look forward to reading more of your posts!

Tom said...

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for your comment. I'm glad the blog is useful. If you have any questions as you make your application to the OT program, you can contact me through the UBC website. All the best with your application.

Tom