This page provides you the strategies that you need to get your busy OTs, who may not have the time to know you, to actually know you. However, most importantly, this pages gives you the tactics to let your OTs know you as a hardworking, studious, social and helpful student. I purposely say “student” because I believe that volunteers, like you, should engage in active learning while working with their OTs. Through learning OT, you can see if OT is indeed the right career for you and use what you learn to ace your interview.
Good luck!
Read evaluations and daily notes
Stay for lunch
Make conveniences for your therapist
Be Vigilant
Reading evaluations or SOAP, which stands for Subjective, Objective, and Assessment Plan, is the fastest ways to help you to know what the therapists are doing. This evaluation includes the patients’ conditions, and their Short and Long Term Goals, labeled STG or LTG. Furthermore, depending on the setting that the therapist worked in, the therapists measured the patient’s abilities subjectively or objectively:When a therapist measured a patient’s ability subjectively, the therapist made an eye-ball estimate on the patient’s level. For instance, in a rehabilitation center, the therapists would say that the patient's level is "Contact Guard Assistance" or CGA, when the patient needs the therapist to hold him by the back when the patient is doing his toiletry. (Pictorial info) On the other hand, when a therapist measured a patient objectively, they are using actual measuring instruments. For example, the hand therapists used handgrip dynamometers to measure the strength of their patient’s grip.
At first, I did not know what my rehabilitation therapists were doing and saying. I do not understand my therapists’ language because they are using words like “max assist,” in their conversations. I do not understand why they ask the patients to play balloon toss, while standing up. I felt like I am from Mars! However, when I see their evaluations, I can begin to decode my therapists' language and interpret the meaning of my therapists' activities. “Max assist” means that the patients need help from the therapist for 75% of the activity to complete their ADLs, such as bathing, dressing and eating. The fact that the therapist asks their patient to do balloon toss is to practice the patients’ balance, so that they can do activities that required balance, such as wearing the pants. In the end, although I felt exhausted when I file 30 pages of charts and clean every corner of the rehab gym , I felt rewarded to read my OTs’ evaluations to learn something new.
So now you understand the therapists language by reading evaluations, then you can eat lunch with them! Why? Eating lunch with them is a crucial learning experience! This is an opportunity to know the common problems that your therapists faced and how they solve their problems. For instance, the therapists talked about how a patient is uncooperative and the steps that they need to motivate the patient to participate in therapy.
These meetings can be very “UN”professional. The therapists can talk about almost anything from complaining about their patients’ verbal abuse to dogs and to their marriages and families. Therefore,I love to attend the therapist meetings because these meetings are hilarious. However, this is also an opportunity for me to know them not only as a professional, but also as human-beings.
Also, staying for lunch is the easiest way for your therapist to know you. Sometimes they are so busy helping their patients that they do not have the time to know you. Therefore, if you can stay in your therapy center and make time for your therapist to know you, they can get to know you a lot better! Plus, this is also an opportunity to use exposure effect, which is a psychology concept saying that the more time a participants sees an object, the more likely they will like it: Same goes with your therapist, if your therapist sees you more. I believe that they will begin to like you because of the exposure effect.
I know that some therapists do not eat together. I went to a hand clinic, and hardly any of the therapist stay for lunch. However, if there is any therapist who stay for lunch, I would just seat next to the therapist and eat. It can be very awkward at first. However, I can guarantee you that you will enjoy it because I have it before. At those times, I either used the time to read my OT's evaluation or just talk to him.
Because I lunched with my therapists for at least 5 months, I get to know them and they get to know me, so my OT recommender gives me a “strong” recommendation. (Well, she said it.) Plus, by the time, I am leaving the therapy center, my therapist not only give me a card thanking me, but they also give a chocolate cake! (To make it more memorable, my therapists told me “Not all volunteers get a cake!”) Yes, they do like me.
I know that each therapeutic center has its own set of chores , but I hope these strategies will work for you:
I do not know how powerful this strategy is until I went to volunteer in a hand clinic in San Francisco. As a volunteer in a skilled nursing rehabilitation center, I was always told to organize files and clean the rehabilitation room. Therefore, when I go to a hand clinic, I was ready to do these chores. To my surprise, when I arrived to a clinic, I discovered that these chores are optional. However, I find that if I do not do these chores, the therapists cannot do their jobs! I decided to take on to these chores.
I came as early as possible to the clinic to refill the hand cream tubes, the ultrasound cream bottles, the paraffin wax tank, and the hot water pack tank, so I can make sure that my hand therapists have all the tools they need to start their work.
I also organize all the 100 plus patients’ chart including both the current and the discharged into alphabetical orders.
Therefore, if my hand therapist wants a specific patient’s chart, they can find their patients faster.
Sometimes, I volunteered to help my therapists to buy their coffee too, so they can treat the patient while waiting for their coffee.
Although these chores does sound exhausting, I felt rewarded because my therapists complemented to me:
“You are the best!”
“You are my favorite!”
“Can you come every day?”
“I want to give you a ten dollar tip!”
Because your OTs may need you to be their witness.
Once, a nonverbal girl with severe autism and intellectual disability accidentally bite my OT a quarter inch deep into her skin. Considering that I witnessed the girl biting my OT, I signed a form as a witness, such that my OT can leave her work early for medical treatment.