I Turned Curiosity into a Career in Occupational Therapy
How Occupational Therapy (OT) is a match for people who love learning and trying new things.
This week, I learned a new taekwondo kick and am now looking up creative writing prompts to use next week. With other clients, I have worked on writing and typing, cleaning and organizing, mindfulness and relaxation, and even repaying debt.
As an OT, I work in a “client-centered” practice. What this means, is that everything I do stems from my client. It starts with who they are, what matters to them, and the goals we work on come from there. We talk about their dreams, struggles, and what they actually have to do each day. Everything from when you start your day in the morning and end it at night is my forte. Even how you sleep.
This also means that anything my clients do is something I can help them with. That often means I am learning about completely new activities.
Like recently, taekwondo.
I love it.
I love learning. I listen to podcasts about topics I have never thought about before, like bird migration. I try new sports and activities as a complete beginner. I love meeting new people and asking them about their passions and interests.
If you’re like me, I’d look into OT.
If you do look into it, you’ll find a lot of long definitions. That’s because OT is a lot of things. You essentially work with people to help them do things that matter to them. The “occupations” in Occupational Therapy are any activity you do. Brushing your teeth is an occupation. So is learning to drive.
In my experience, not many people know about OT, and if they do, they have one specific example. They may have had a family member who had an OT in the hospital who helped them with a wheelchair. Then, the family of that person knows OT as people who help with wheelchairs. That is not wrong, it’s just not the whole story.
Then, there is the assumption that we are work therapists because that is usually how we use the word “occupation”. Again, that’s not wrong. There are OT’s that support people staying in work and returning to work after leaving due to illness, injury, or other circumstances. It’s just a small role within a large field.
The breadth of OT is endless.
That makes for a lot of variability in the field, which is also a thing I love about it. I can have countless jobs with one career.
One degree, endless applications. Ideally and hopefully, career stability due to this.
I have worked with older adults who have recently suffered a stroke or are having a flare-up of an old condition. I have worked with kids as young as five on activities related to school. I worked briefly in mental health supporting clients with the activities that were the most challenging with their symptoms at the time. I helped in the ER for one day, have helped in homes, hospitals, clinics, not-for-profit organizations, on a farm, and now I virtually see clients on the other side of Canada.
That isn’t an exhaustive list. There are endless ways to be an OT, every clinician gets to be an individual just as much as our clients are.
Curiosity led me to OT and it helped me to love it. I am curious when learning more about my career through courses and working with other OTs, and I’m always curious with each client as I learn about who they are and what makes them unique.
OT is growing around the world and it’s worth knowing about. It might be able to help you, or someone you love, do something that you need to do, want to do, or are expected to do.
