Personal Narrative: A Career As An Occupational Therapy Assistant

Ever since I was a child, people always asked me what I would like to be when I grew up. At first, I would always say that I wanted to become an engineer because of my love for hands-on learning and my exceptional problem-solving skills. However, when I grew older I found that similar spark of fascination in the medical field. I wanted to go into a profession where I could help others and use my love for problem solving and hands-on interest. This is when I became interested in occupational therapy and fell in love with the profession. Occupational therapy has several elements I find passion in such as, the ability to be hands on and help change other people’s lives in a positive manner. My goal in life is to become an occupational therapist and help others live independent lives again. As I work to obtain this goal, I am doing many things such as strengthening my writing skills because this major involves many various aspects of writing. To succeed in this field, one needs to be able to write strong research-based papers and cite all sources correctly. I am striving to master these skills in hopes that I can succeed in and accomplish my academic goals.

I didn’t know what I wanted to be at the time, but the medical field sparked my interest. I went up there, and I met a woman by the name of Pam who worked as an occupational therapist at a nursing home. She showed me around and introduced me to her patients. I love everything about her work. She would show simple tasks, such as cooking an egg, to her patients and helped them try to master it. Pam even showed them how to sit in the toilet seat by themselves. I observed and even helped her sometimes, and I loved the feeling of helping them get a step closer to living independently. Recently, I talked to the occupational therapist in the school at De Queen, and she told me that she has 32 kids that have Down syndrome or have some sort of disability problem. Her name is Kim, and she sees them twice a week for 30 minutes. She helps them recover or develop fine motor skills, visual and social participation skills, and problem solving skills. According to Kim, she states that occupational therapy and OTA is a career in which you help a person try to become independent in doing daily normal tasks, and she loves her job because she gets to see the progress every child makes. I knew that this was the career I wanted, and I was glad that UA Cossatot offered it. An occupational therapy assistant not only help patients recover daily skills, but they help them live

Throughout this course, my mind was opened to several healthcare careers which I was unaware of before. For the careers that I did know about, this course still did a great job at informing me of the professions on a deeper level. After reviewing the lectures and careers, I feel strongly about pursuing a career in Occupational Therapy. More specifically, I want to become an Occupational Therapy Assistant. This was a career that I had in mind when I began the course and I have been interested in it for about two years now. Occupational Therapy Assistants need to be sociable, compassionate, flexible, and enjoy problem solving. I believe I will enjoy this profession because my personality matches with all of these things.

The Psychology Major’s Handbook by Tara L. Kuther gives a list of positions that Psychology majors can obtain with a bachelor’s degree. This list is helpful because only one-fourth of psychology majors go to graduate school immediately following graduation (Kuther, 2015, p. 170). Within this list, the occupation that caught my eye was that of an Occupational Therapist. Though one cannot be an Occupational Therapist with only a bachelor’s degree, one can be an Occupational Therapist Assistant (OTA) with a bachelor’s degree. With other training and licensure, an individual with a bachelor’s in psychology can work in the field of Occupational Therapy because psychology teaches one human service skills. Employers may not understand why a psychology major would be eligible for a job like Occupational Therapy; thus it is the responsibility of the applicant to explain their eligibility for the desired position (Kuther, 2015, p. 171).

From that experience I went on to shadow OTA’s at Plant City Rehabilitation Center and at Hillsborough County Public Schools to further explore my interest. While shadowing I was also allowed to participate in working with the patients and discuss the role of an OTA in detail with the staff. Through these experiences and observations my interest has led to a desire to become an OTA.

My interest in becoming an Occupational Therapy Assistant comes from my desire to change lives. I want to help people do activities they never thought they would be able to do again. I want to be there for others and teach individuals to live a “Normal life.” I want to make a difference by being helpful and compassionate to others through a difficult

The American Occupational Therapy Association(AOTA) offers continuing education (CE). They are recognized, by NBCOT, state licensure boards, specialty certification providers and employers.There are many areas to specialize in, in both adults and children needs. There are also areas in Health and wellness, mental health, productive aging rehab and disability, work and

Occupational Therapists “ I believe that the therapist’s function should be to help people become free to be aware and to experience their possibilities” (“Rollo May Quotes”). This is a quote by rollo may, and he trying to let people know anybody is capable to experience possibilities or changes in their lives. Occupational Therapy assistants and aides help patients develop, recover, improve, as well as maintaining the skills patients need for a daily living. Occupational therapists work with directly providing all the therapy they can to the patients. Pursuing a career as an Occupational Therapist’s is a challenging and great career for those who want to work with children to build bonds and enjoy assigned tasks.

Becoming an Occupational Therapy Assistant has been one of my big ambitions for years now. I have worked hard to make sure that this is what I wanted to do with my life. I have a passion to help people. I am a very family and church-oriented person. I have been on many mission trips, such as going to Haiti and even more near by Show-Me Youth Home, in Barnett, Missouri, and to see what I could do with this degree is exciting!

Now before I talked a little on how I became interested in this helping profession, by doing my own research and so on. I have to admit there have been points in my college career that I have doubted my choice in career. What has helped me continue in this far, have been a couple different experiences. One has been an amazing teacher that I had my first semester here at Northern. She herself is an Occupational Therapist and the class that she taught was an Intro to Occupational Therapy

My name is Yazmin Velazco; I was born in Camaguey, Cuba. I immigrated to the USA in 1983. I lived in Atlanta Georgia for over 21 years; I now live in Miami Florida for the past 4 years. I am engaged to a wonderful man, I have three wonderful kids all boys. my oldest, my best friend Tomas is 19 years old, my middle one is 8 years old Orestes Bka Bebo, and my baby Santi his 11 months old, I must say he, and my best friend Elizabeth whom is an occupational therapist herself. They both inspired me to get into school at age 42. "The most important factor in my success, however, is my family, my own determination, my organizational skills, my communication skills, and my love and concern for others. After

I do not think that the OT should belittle the OTA as the OTA was probably just afraid they would hurt the child. I do believe that the occupational therapy assistant should have asked for assistance earlier in the therapy if she/he did have concerns. The OT should demonstrate beneficence to the OTA and the patient as it is still a need to be addressed. The OT should explain to the assistant the need of laying prone to and why it is so important to the child. The child may not have the best of insurance and could be on a limited supply of therapy benefits. They could also be so behind in their development just because the assistant was uncomfortable with the tube. This demonstrates justice as it will benefit the child to get the treatment

Bruce Mueller started his career as an Occupational Therapist (OT) in a general rehabilitation facility. After five years, he specialized in hand therapy at a medical clinic. In 2003, Mueller became an Occupational Therapist at the Gainesville Veterans Affair Medical Center (VAMC). He applied to become the Occupational Therapist supervisor at the VAMC and claimed the leadership position in 2009. Since then, Mueller has been the acting supervisor for the seventeen additional OT’s employed at the VAMC. The job requires him to be responsible for assigning work, disciplining employees, administering the department’s annual employee performance evaluations, mapping labor, and maintaining other organizational duties.

I have chosen occupational therapy as a career because of my family experiences, volunteer work, and my personal skills and qualities that I believe will contribute to my success as an occupational therapist. Occupational therapy has interested me from a young age because my mom, who is an occupational therapist, inspired me and instilled a passion within me for helping others. I have always been interested in pursuing a career in the health field where I am able to put my sills to great use in order to help other people. I am also drawn to occupational therapy because of the amount of variety within the profession. I love that occupational therapists have a wide range of populations to work with, as well as settings and specializations that they can chose to pursue. I also like how holistic and patient centered the therapist’s approach is while helping patients. For me, the biggest reason that I would to be an occupation therapist is because of the opportunity

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something” (Steve Jobs). I remained undecided with which career I wanted to pursue for a period of time and thinking about this quote I knew I didn’t want to wake up every morning and dread the day ahead of me. I knew I wanted to remain in the activity of color guard but also wanted to help people with their personal goals. I had always had self-image issues growing up, and when I decided to change my life style and get in shape I knew I wanted to help people gain their self-confidence. I discovered that exercise science is a field that allows me to stay in the color guard world and help people, there are several fields that would allow me to do both, personal training, physical