Student Blog
Diversity

The Need for BrOTs ⟩
September 9, 2016, by Erwin

Diversity What are OS/OT?

It’s no secret that occupational therapy is a female-dominated profession. But while the majority of occupational therapists are women, there is a growing need for men in the profession.

In order to best serve our diverse populations, it is important that we also have a diverse workforce. In this case, increasing gender diversity provides opportunities to better serve our clients and propel the profession forward.

For example, in an adult rehabilitation setting, male clients sometimes feel more comfortable having another male assist them in developing/regaining self-care skills such as dressing, bathing, and using the restroom.

The same could be said in other settings. For my Level II fieldwork, I worked in pediatric mental health. At this site, the majority of my clients were adolescent boys labeled with a mental health diagnosis. Working with these boys made me realize how important it was for them to have a male figure in their lives. While some boys were content working with female practitioners, other boys were more comfortable working with me because they found a male more relatable. This in turn created a therapeutic relationship where my clients felt more comfortable sharing their feelings and experiences. After all, for many boys that age, sharing delicate information to women isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do.

Although we love the companionship of our female classmates, I feel that the male students in the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy have developed a special bond. While about 10% of our student body is male, those numbers are growing every year. We “BrOTs” have to represent! After all, occupational therapy is about helping others, and helping others is not exclusive to a single gender.

Here are a few photos of USC’s BrOTs.

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New Friends! ⟩
September 25, 2015, by Heather

Community Diversity School/Life Balance

When I first arrived at USC, I was not anticipating the multitude of amazing people that I would meet. I thought grad school was just about furthering my education to prepare me for my career in occupational therapy. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

The people here are incredible and I have grown incredibly close to many of them.

The friends that I have made in this program have been some of the most amazing people that I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know. We come from various backgrounds, different parts of the country, and from a wide variety of life experiences.

A large part of my enjoyment of being at school is being with my friends. We spend endless academic and nonacademic hours together, and are constantly involved in each other’s lives.

Without a doubt, my friends in this program have molded my experience at USC significantly. I look forward to our futures as we grow together as health-care practitioners.

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LOTA-eria! ⟩
May 1, 2015, by Brenda

Diversity

LOTA, the Latino Occupational Therapy Association, hosted its first LOTA-ería event yesterday on campus! Based on the Mexican Lotería, LOTA-ería uses images that are intended to help students with their OT Spanish. LOTA hopes to continue hosting events such as these in an effort to promote diversity!

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Lunar New Year Celebrations ⟩
February 27, 2015, by Bindi

Community Diversity International Living in LA

The Global Initiatives team organized a Chinese new lunar year dinner at the Plum Tree Inn in Chinatown. Adley Chan and Daniel Park put together a diverse group of international students together with the faculty.

The organizers laid out a large spread of Chinese cuisine including a jellyfish appetizer. They took into special consideration the vegetarian students and had several vegetarian dishes for the several Indian and vegetarian therapists and students.

Chinese New Year: It is the year of the goat, and obviously there was a lengthy discussion on Chinese zodiac animals and everyone wanted to find out which sign they were and the significance. Mine is the Dragon ☺.

Adley Chan informed us on the correct way of eating noodles and they say NEVER cut a noodle before it is entirely in your mouth. In China, people have the custom to eat noodles on the birthdays. The long and continuous noodle strips are the symbolic meaning of longevity. So people who choose to eat noodles on the birthdays show their wishes to live longer and maintain a better life. The noodle represents longevity and cutting it before it reaches the mouth indicates bad luck, cutting the longevity and good health.

All in all it was a fun, laughter filled dinner and getting to know the faculty and other students better. Happy Chinese New Year!!!

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Elderly Drivers and Community Mobility ⟩
April 23, 2014, by Jen

Classes Diversity What are OS/OT?

In my leadership capstone course, we had an interesting discussion on elderly drivers and community mobility. I found it interesting that although senior drivers are safest compared to other drivers on the road, they are more likely to be injured or killed in an accident. I am not sure of the exact reason for this, but I believe it could be because their health may already be compromised due to their old age. I also think a reason they may be more likely to be injured or killed when involved in an accident (even if they are not the reason for the accident) is that their reflexes may be slower so they are not able to protect themselves as quickly. There are a number of barriers that elderly drivers face. One of them mentioned in the forum was how unmet transportation needs are linked to reduced well-being. This reminded me of a client I had who used a ride share program to get to their therapy appointments. Although they valued therapy sometimes their ride would be very early or very late in picking them up and dropping them off. This became quite a problem because it greatly interfered with how they spent their time. Instead of coming to therapy for an hour session, they frequently would get dropped off up to 45 minutes before therapy and not get picked up until an hour after therapy ended. This caused the time they dedicated to therapy each week to become almost 3 hours (with most of the time being waiting for their ride) instead of spending their time doing things they would like to do. I hope in the near future these types of issues will become less common for older adults.

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