Week 11: Learning Experience

Please share/ discuss something you learned from this fieldwork experience you feel will impact your practice as occupational therapist in the future.

            I have learned a vast amount of information during my clinical at Wolfson’s Children’s Rehabilitation. One thing that I learned during this clinical that I will take with my as my career as an Occupational Therapist is that your day might not always go as planned. This is especially true with pediatrics. I plan ahead for each child’s session so that I know what items I need to have ready; however, there have been many sessions that I have to change due to a number or circumstances. I have learned to be more flexible and think quickly on my feet to change the plan. I have also learned how to best use my therapeutic use of self while in pediatrics. There are many times when the children do not want to participate or are acting out during therapy session and it is important to do your best to get as much out of them in the short session as possible. The difference in pediatrics compared to my last clinical in outpatient hands is that I feel as though each child’s session is much more individualized. There were many times at my last clinical that I felt like we were performing the same exercises over and over for each of the patients due to many of them having the same diagnoses. In pediatrics I have enjoyed preparing different activities for every child for every session that they attend. Overall, I have learned a lot of information at this pediatric clinical along with outpatient hands and school work, all of which I will take with me as I begin my career.