Why I Want to Pursue a Career in the Health Sciences

The profession of occupational therapy is often mistaken for a job in which the therapist is a career counselor. This is the exactly what my dad had thought when I told him that I wanted to pursue a career in occupational therapy. I explained to him that occupational therapists are not concerned with career counseling; instead, they are focused on daily activities that give meaning to live. The goal of occupational therapy is to help patients regain or develop skills that are necessary for the activities of daily living. Occupational therapists have the option to work in a variety of settings including hospitals, outpatient rehabilitation centers, schools, and with patients in their own homes.

Occupational therapy is the ability to provide help to others fairly and respectfully by doing everyday activities that can actually benefit the patients by improving the quality of his or her life. By doing so, this patient will be able to return to their loved ones and their daily activities. As a future occupational therapy, I will try my best to help these patients reach their goals of becoming dependent again. The passion that I have to help those that are in needs of treatments. There are several reasons that I choose to become an occupational therapist, among those reasons are the desire I have to help those that are in need of medical treatments. To continue, I wanted a career that would not take too long to complete and not have a long waiting list.

First of all I would like to be in the healthcare field because I would like to have the ability to help parents keep their children safe.I love children and I hate seeing them when they are sick. I would like to be able to help them live a healthier environment by helping them avoid illnesses and by helping them get over illnesses quickly. I would like to one day find a cure for an illness and save multiple children or

Occupational therapy assistant is my dream career. They help people live a normal life again without any assistance of other people. The help people enhance, improve, develop, and recover the skills use for working or doing daily average tasks. OTA’s usually work under the direction of occupational therapists, and they still get involved with providing therapy for patients. According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, occupational therapy assistants help patients do therapeutic activities. For example, they help patients to stretch or do other exercises. OTA’s also help children who have developmental disabilities to play activities that helps stimulate coordination and learn to socialize. They teach disable people to use special equipment,

Occupational therapy is much more than enhancing activities of daily living to me. I see occupational therapy as helping people achieve daily freedom and making attainable goals to improve their physical and mental health while providing a professional relationship to encourage trust and reliability throughout treatment. Something as simple as tying shoes or being able to grab a fork to eat can make all the difference in the world to the patients an occupational therapist will treat. I have been working at a hand clinic since September and have seen that the small achievements like the tying of the shoes of the ability to bend the finger 10 more degrees puts a big smile on the faces of the patients and improves their outlook and demeanor towards their injury. Encouraging home exercise, helping with self cares, teaching writing skills and helping provide custom splints are all aspects that I have seen with my job and observation of occupational therapy as a whole. When I started my job at the hand clinic a therapist told me that the most basic occupational therapy explanation she could provide me is that occupational therapy is a way of helping others achieve a better level of daily living for things that they want and or need to do in life than when they sought help from therapy.

Occupational Therapy is a vital segment of the health care field. Individuals in this profession make a difference in the lives of others by helping their patients function effectively despite their disability, illness, or injury. They help by teaching patients many activities of daily living tasks which can include, grooming, toileting, dressing, eating, mobility, and much more! Along with the daily living tasks, Occupational Therapy helps individuals to be productive and successful in ways they want to be, like going school, taking care of others, managing their homes, preparing meals. Most importantly, they help their patients adapt to their environments and increase their independent function by helping them perform tasks with as little help from others as possible. Without Occupational Therapy, some patients with temporary disabilities could have a permanent disability. If individuals receive the Occupational treatments, they can prevent the loss of function.

“What do you want to be when you graduate high school?,” my mother asked me. She has asked me this specific question my entire life but today she wanted an answer. I was seventeen, only a month away until my eighteenth birthday, so it was time for me to make a decision. I told her I did not know and she started to list a bunch of career options I could pursue. She continue to go on and on then, she said Occupational Therapist. My mom described to me what Occupational Therapist did and their job responsibilities. That is when I decided that this is the career for me. I am driven to become an Occupational Therapist because I want to provide for my future family, and to grow spiritually and mentally in the process.

When asked what I want to do with my life, my answer is simply to help others. Although this answer is one would expect to hear from just about anyone, I have always been encouraged by mentors and parents to do what I love. In my case, helping others brings me a great deal of satisfaction. The human body and how it is able to adapt has always been a fascination of mine, and from a young age I identified the health care field as an ideal fit for my interests in medicine, as well as my passion for helping others. With these two drives in mind, I found myself at the age of sixteen with a career goal in mind: Occupational Therapy.

Now you may ask who is an occupational therapist. Well, to understand that, you first need to know the basics of this therapy. So, what is occupational therapy? As the name suggests, occupational therapy is a treatment, which helps the patients regain health through occupation.

An Occupational Therapist help people who may have mental, physical, or developmental disabilities learn and/or regain daily living or work skills. The disabilities that you Occupational Therapist work with can be caused by birth defects, injuries, aging or illness.

An Occupational Therapist is a individual that can evaluate, develop, and help people regain and maintain daily living skills. Occupational Therapist work with people that have physical, mental and developmental conditions. The goal of the Therapist is to offer intervention that focus on teaching skills and helping the patient as well as the family on how to adapt and strengthen themselves so that they might be able to overcome physical obstacles. Occupational Therapist work with other health professionals in speech therapy, nursing, physical therapy and social work to ensure that the patients course of treatment aligns with the other areas.

In this day and age, there are so many health careers out there most people don’t even know where to start when looking for an occupation that truly interest them. I’ve spent my whole life not knowing what I wanted to grow up to be and worrying about not knowing what to study in college. This past year I have recently been looking into Occupational Therapy. This form of therapy is to help those recuperating from physical or mental illness that encourages rehabilitation through the performance of activities required in daily life (What Is Occupational Therapy?, n.d.). People who work in this field are referred to as Occupational Therapist.

The scope of practice and responsibilities of an occupational therapist include many aspects of helping someone recover from a variety of health issues. As an occupational therapist you treat injured, ill, and disabled patients through the therapeutic use of everyday activities. The activities help patients recover and improve to be able to function for daily living. Therapists show patients how to use adaptive equipment such as leg braces, wheelchairs, and eating aids (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2015). As an occupational therapist there are a variety of fields you can be certified in. This can include pediatrics, geriatrics, acute care, home health, and rehabilitation. The qualities one must have in order to be a successful occupational therapist include but are not limited to having communication skills, compassion, flexibility, interpersonal skills, patience, and writing skills

Occupational therapists help people of all ages recovering from physical or mental illnesses participate and perform what they want or need to accomplish through works of therapeutic rehabilitation with use of everyday activities in daily life; hence, giving it the name Occupational Therapy. An occupational therapist must look at their patients holistically, not just the part that is causing them problems. Occupational therapists are important as they help people regain their independence in daily activities. This field is projected to be the fastest in growth in upcoming years.

An occupational therapist is a trained and licensed health care professional who can make a complete evaluation of the impact of disease on the activities of the patient at home and in work situations. Hobbies and recreational activities are considered when an assessment is made. The most generally accepted definition of occupational therapy is that it is an activity, physical or mental, that aids in a patient’s recovery from disease or injury.