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Mock Interview Reflection

     I believe that this assignment is an extremely beneficial and critical part of our curriculum, especially at this point in OT school. By preparing answers to common interview questions, I was given the opportunity to really reflect on the things I have learned about myself and the profession. It also allowed me to explore the areas that I have challenged myself and grown in during my time so far in OT school. I am able to process and reflect best when I write things down or journal, so I utilized this method primarily to prepare for the mock interview. Through my own personal reflection and through exploring resources that were posted for us to look at, I learned the importance of having goals and looking prospectively. Employers really do want to see that you are not desiring to remain stagnant as an OT practitioner. They commonly will ask about your professional goals for the next year or five years, or how you plan on continuing to be a life-long learner even after OT school.
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Aging and Sexual Health

One of the key takeaways for me is the importance of educating clients-especially our older adult clients- on the differences between male and female sexual response. For example, most males often start with desire and then arousal follows. On the flip side, women tend to start the process with arousal and then desire follows. This should be discussed with older adult clients because the man may be waiting for the woman to desire sex before engaging when it may take initiating sex before the woman feels desire. Another takeaway for me is informing older adults that they can still express their sexuality, have sexual encounters, and get an orgasm in other ways besides just penetrative vaginal sex. This type of physical intimacy may become more and more challenging as a client ages in their older adult years, so educating them on other ways to get an orgasm and have physical intimacy is extremely important, especially because staying sexually active has many health benefits for the olde
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Driving + Community Mobility

We had a guest lecturer come speak on the topic of driving as it pertains mostly to the older adult population. He is a Certified Driver Rehab Specialist (CDRS). One of the takeaways I got from the lecture is how you must assess many different physical and cognitive components to determine if someone should proceed to an on-road assessment. For example, the CDRS will first assess visual components such as acuity, processing, and attention. Then they will assess cognition (MoCA, Mini Mental, SLUMS, etc.), range of motion, manual muscle testing (such as grip strength), along with many other performance skills. Something else I took away from the lecture is how we can offer some simple strategies (without necessarily being a CDRS) to individuals that are having some driving difficulties that are very cost-affordable. Some of these modifications include an enlarged rear view mirror, adding blind spot mirrors, and putting a dark colored towel on the dash to reduce glare. One interventio
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Nutrition + OT

The guest lecturer from today was very knowledgeable and enlightening. I did not have a strong background in nutrition nor did I realize the extreme importance of nutrition, especially in regards to the elderly and those that have been hospitalized. One takeaway from today's lecture was the importance of focusing on clients' quality of life over simply surviving. Especially in the acute care setting, if our goal is just to stabilize a patient and send them home, we have missed a huge part of our job! We should be focusing on making sure that the patients are able to get back to the things that are meaningful to them instead of having residual symptoms of being hospitalized including weakness and fatigue. Most if not all of these residual symptoms can be prevented with proper nutrition. One thing I did not know prior to this lecture was that patients leaving the hospital should be on an increased caloric intake and supplements at least 6 months following discharge including re
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Glyphs Reflection

The thing that surprised me the most after comparing the glyphs I made my first year and last week were how similar they were. I was surprised that my views on leadership had not changed very much after learning many things in OT school. Both pictures had a square head which means I believed and still believe that leadership can change and develop over time. This mostly stems from my leadership position with RKSTC, as I feel like I am not naturally a leader but have developed skills over time to make successful in my leadership role. One thing that changed was my eye shape. This shows that I originally believed that the majority of OTs are leaders but I now believe there are a fairly equal number of leaders and non-leaders. This belief stems from my fieldwork experiences. I believe you can either go the extra mile for patient care and be a leader or you can just do the minimum in your job and be a non-leader. The number of eyelashes on each of my glyphs were the same. I remembered 4/5
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Above is a YouTube video of my debriefing of OT 640! Enjoy!
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Neuro Note 4

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     For this neuro note, I am writing a reflection of my experience attending the Memphis Rolling Grizzlies' basketball practice. Our class was given the opportunity to sit in and watch their practice. While they are in their offseason, they scrimmaged for around two hours. After their practice was over, they brought out additional wheelchairs for us to get in and try out playing wheelchair basketball. I chose to write about this experience because I gained invaluable knowledge about adaptive sports and spinal cord injuries. One thing I took away from attending the practice was the value of social interaction with people who know what you are going through. I could tell that the team members were all very close and had really good relationships with each other, including the coach who was also in a wheelchair due to a spinal cord injury. It is important as a future practitioner to encourage our clients to remain socially active, especially with individual's who are in simila
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