Student Blog
Getting Involved

The Fault in Our Stars Creates the Perfect Alignment of Health Care Collaboration ⟩
October 15, 2015, by Rashelle

Getting Involved What are OS/OT?

As mentioned in my post before, one of the most unique things about USC is the opportunity to learn from an interdisciplinary team. This week I went to a movie screening of The Fault in Our Stars at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. After the movie viewing there was an interdisciplinary panel led by the Norris Medical Library, consisting of a Medical Doctor (MD), Registered Nurse (RN), Physical Therapist (PT) and Occupational Therapist (OT), whom all have had experience working with adolescent and young adults (AYA) diagnosed with cancer.

These health professionals answered questions regarding the movie, shared myth busters, elaborated upon roles of the hospital staff in the movie, and described the lessons they’ve learned from their firsthand experiences working with this population. The USC faculty and staff also spoke about the differences in treatment approaches when working with AYA, in comparison to children or older adults. This section of the discussion hit home for me in particular, due to my passion for working with AYA in their difficult transitions acquiring new roles and forming individual identities. While the movie itself turned on a faucet of emotions and tears, the panel afterward taught me how to cope with the emotional hardships that may come with working so closely with AYA diagnosed with cancer. This heartwarming, encouraging and uplifting event demonstrated the capcity of each profession to distinctively contribute to the alignment of the stars, in order to facilitate the greatest recovery for all patients.

Here is a picture of a few occupational therapy students surrounding Dr. Caryn Roach, the occupational therapy representative in the panel. How occupational therapists contribute in particular to this health care team, is by ensuring that each patient is able to participate, to their fullest capacity, in activities that are meaningful to them — may it be reading a book, feeding themselves, showering independently, socializing with their friends or traveling to Amsterdam with a significant other to meet one’s favorite author, Van Houten — occupational therapists find the supports, educate patients on adaptive devices, implement energy conservation techniques, strengthen muscles and increase ranges of motion to provide a greater range of accessibiility and quality of life for the patient.

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There’s No Health Without Mental Health ⟩
October 9, 2015, by Jodie

Community Getting Involved

On Saturday, October 3rd, I participated in the 2015 NAMIWalks LA with a bunch of my classmates as “Team Occupational Therapy,” led by one of our clinical faculty members, Dr. Delgado! NAMI stands for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the overall purpose of NAMI is to change how Americans view persons with metal illness. NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness.

All of the attendees met at Grand Park early in the morning for a pre-walk celebration and then we began our walk around Downtown Los Angeles to raise public awareness of mental illness and to display our support for people affected by mental illness. This was a very fun, 5k walk that took about 2 hours to complete. As I am currently in the Mental Health immersion in the program, this walk was very meaningful to me because I have the opportunity to work very closely with persons affected by mental illness at my Level I fieldwork site at Century Villages at Cabrillo. I am very committed to supporting NAMI in educating, advocating and increasing public awareness of how important mental health is. As a team, I am so happy to announce that we were able to raise over $2,000 in support of NAMI.

If you would like to learn more about NAMI, or to find out about more local NAMI events going on near you, check out their website at nami.org.

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Trojan Pride ⟩
October 4, 2015, by Jodie

Getting Involved

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend the 14th Annual OTAC Afternoon Tea with a Scholar, held at the USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy Center for Occupation and Lifestyle Redesign. This event was coordinated by one of our clinical faculty members, Celso Delgado Jr., OTD, OTR/L, who currently serves as our Region 2 Director for OTAC.

As the second year OTAC Student Delegate for USC, it is part of my responsibilities to assist Dr. Delgado with Region 2 events. Seen in this picture with me are Dr. Delgado and our first year OTAC Student Delgate, Erwin Borja.

The keynote speaker at this year’s event was Shawn Roll, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, who is an assistant professor here in our division. Dr. Roll presented on the topic of “Innovative Approaches to Advancing Occupational Performance in Individuals with Upper Extremity Musculoskeletal Disorders”. This was such an informative presentation that really captivated everyone’s attention and highlighted Dr. Roll’s breadth of knowledge and experience.

As I had the opportunity to mingle with fellow attendees at this event, it struck me just how many of our alumni go on to fulfill leadership roles within not only OTAC, but AOTA as well. I feel extremely honored and inspired to be surrounded by such influential faculty members and practitioners here at USC Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy!

These are just a few of the many inspiring leaders of our state association, OTAC (many of whom are USC OT alumni! 😊).

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Health Professional Puzzle Pieces ⟩
October 2, 2015, by Rashelle

Getting Involved

One of the greatest things that USC offers is the chance to learn from and network with the breadth of programs offered at USC. This past Saturday I attended the 5th Annual Inter-professional Health Symposium. This unique opportunity allowed me to interact and collaborate with USC students in their journey of becoming doctors, physician assistants, pharmacists or physical therapists. USC was even able to invite nurses from Mount Saint Mary’s University, to further expand the disciplines represented! The conference focused on the large-scale issue of Urban Health, and emphasized how the solution lies within the cohesion of our health professions.

Each speaker talked about the individual responsibilities of each profession, and the necessity of interdependence if we truly wanted to form an effective, patient-centered recovery process.

During lunch, we were given a case study to practice our newly acquired skills, which we have learned in our respective programs thus far. I was beyond excited to able to tell other professions about what occupational therapists can do with our holistic lens, creative adaptations and healthy routines! It was also exciting being able to reconnect with friends from my undergraduate years at USC.

Fight on forever!

Lastly, it was nice to see my fellow occupational therapy colleagues representing our profession in casual conversation and groups alongside me!

Stacey Janofsky, a first year occupational therapy student, can attest to the value of the symposium as she even mentioned it as her favorite memory in the program thus far.

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Starting Early: The Next Generation Of OTs ⟩
October 1, 2015, by Joe

Getting Involved

Last week, I represented USC Chan at an expo for high school guidance counselors.

While we do offer a direct admit Bachelor’s-to-Master’s program, occupational therapy practice requires a Master’s degree so I was curious how much interest we would receive from high schoolers . . . I mean, I didn’t even know about OT until I was 27!

Turns out there’s a lot of interest! (Which you already knew, you are reading this blog after all . . .)

One of the guidance counselors from St. Louis, MO came directly to us to ask about our programs, because “all my students want to be OTs!” It was such a thrill to hear that even teenagers are voicing interests in joining this awesome profession.

Time did call us one of the top 5 “Most In-Demand Jobs”. And U.S. News & World Report ranks us in the top 10 “Best Health Care Jobs”.

In the comments, tell us about when you first discovered OT!

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