Elaina C. Rodriguez Garza OTD ’22

Leadership concentration: Advanced Clinical Practice/Clinical Research

What brought you to occupational therapy?
Occupational therapy felt like my calling from day 1 when I started shadowing OTs around Atlanta. I didn’t know much about the OT world so I started searching for OT content online and ran into the Trojans Talk OT podcast (which I host now!) where I was exposed even more to how occupations fit into life and the world around us. There’s so much opportunity to use creativity, critical thinking, and reflection in a holistic way and through relationships in OT that I find a perfectly challenging flow in.

Where are you located for your residency and what services are provided there?
I am currently at LAC + USC medical center in a primary care clinic with older Latinx adults to support them in managing their diabetes and hypertension through healthy lifestyle changes. Intervention areas might include healthy eating, physical activity, anxiety or stress management, pain management, checking blood sugar/blood pressure regularly, sleep and more. All of this is done primarily through a lifestyle redesign approach focused on developing healthy habits and routines.

What do you hope to learn from this year?
At the end of the day, what I really hope to walk away with are clinical skills in working with this demographic. As a safety net setting, many of the patients face barriers that you might not encounter in other hospitals or practices. It is really important to me to continue working with communities that reflect those that I identify with or are typically underserved. In addition, I hope to add to the impact of our care by implementing culturally relevant practices in addressing mental health that impacts health management and pass on those skills to future residents.

If you could give any words of advice for incoming Master’s students, what would they be?
The truth is everyone’s experience will be unique but some general advice would be to find your community, lean on each other, and also have fun together. Some of my fondest early memories from the program (pre-pandemic) were group study sessions at the library or a peer’s house with dry erase boards, printed study guides erased over 100 times, sounds of trying to teach each other acronyms while sipping on highly caffeinated beverages to go in to that next test day prepared. (Mid pandemic looked like more Zoom personal meetings, wine, and live updating google doc study guides.) On the more personal side, the curriculum is going to make you so aware of, reflective of, and equipped to facilitate personal growth changes you wouldn’t even expect . . . basically you’ll learn how to OT yourself 😉 and I’m confident you’ll find what works for you to maintain a healthy balance as you go through the program.

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ACOTE accreditation | NBCOT certification

The USC entry-level master’s degree program (cost of attendance) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education® (ACOTE®) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA). The USC entry-level doctorate in occupational therapy (OTD) degree program (cost of attendance) is accredited by ACOTE®. View our program’s ACOTE® standards public data. ACOTE® c/o the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.®, 7501 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 510E, Bethesda, MD 20814, (301) 652-AOTA, www.acoteonline.org.

Professional program graduates are eligible to apply for the national certification examination administered by the National Board for Certification in Occupational Therapy, Inc.® (NBCOT®), nbcot.org. All states require licensure to practice; a felony conviction may affect a graduate’s ability to sit for the NBCOT® OTR certification examination or attain state licensure. Program results from the NBCOT® can be found online at www.nbcot.org/Educators-Folder/SchoolPerformance.