OT outside OT school

November 7, 2012
by Kendra

Community Living in LA What are OS/OT?

Last weekend I attend wedding #527 of the semester in New Orleans. While chatting with the bride’s mother, I learned a dear friend of hers is an occupational therapist who manages a skilled nursing facility in San Antonio, Texas.

Let me meet this girl I said!

It was a really exciting moment for me, getting to ‘talk shop’ with a seasoned professional and hold my ground while doing so. In chatting I discovered she did the validity studies in the early ’90s for the Allen Diagnostic Modules (ADM). Validity and reliability studies are essential for evidence based practice. We need the evidence to show our assessments measure what they say they do (validity) and consistently between testings and different testers (reliability). It just so happens this semester I am interning with one of the developers of the ADM!

It’s moments like these that I am so proud of my education. Not only do I get to go to school with the movers and shakers in the OT world, but Los Angeles is also a city of brilliant and imaginative occupational therapists. I felt, even though I’m still a student, I already have the education to collaborate and work on par with seasoned professionals. Add to that my job as a student ambassador makes attending these kinds of functions; weddings, bridal showers, etc., so much easier to navigate because now I can talk about OT in a clear, succinct way. It was so rewarding getting to offer insight and swap stories with a professional who has been working in the field for 40+ years. And it is especially rewarding to see someone’s internal light bulb go on when they understand the value of an occupational therapist.

This is why USC is #1 in OT!

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