First Post

January 6, 2010
by Michelle

What are OS/OT?

So as a first post all of the ambassadors decided that we would post how our love of OT began, or at least how we decided it’s what we wanted to do with our lives.

When I began my undergraduate career I thought that I would eventually be going to medical school. My plan was finish undergrad, apply to medical schools and become a pediatrician. I have loved kids ever since I can remember and I have always planned on working with them. But then junior year came and I definitely did not have the grades that a person would need to get into medical school and so I started to search out other options.

I quickly decided to pick Physical Therapy because I knew that I could still specialize in working with children and it was still in the medical field. By this time, I only had one more summer before graduation. So in April I started calling clinics in my hometown trying to find anyone that would let me volunteer and observe in their pediatric PT office. I called 7 clinics that day and only one called me back. The clinic that called my back was called “OT 4 Kids,” obviously an Occupational Therapy Clinic, although at the time I had no idea. When I had called them, I remember thinking that because it came up in my Google search it must be the same thing as PT.

Well the OT in charge of the clinic asked me to come in for an interview. I came in and immediately loved the clinic. It just looked so fun. She explained to me that she would pay me to clean, copy papers and observe. I loved working there that summer and I quickly fell in love with the practice of OT. It was something about how they worked with the kids, always letting them find their way and not forcing them into anything. The OTs working at the clinic all would constantly explain to me what they were doing and why they were doing it.

After that summer I knew that OT was my calling and it wasn’t a coincidence that their clinic was the only one to call me back.

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