Personal statement
I became initially interested in occupational therapy when I was at a STEM conference in middle school and found it interesting when they discussed how they set goals to help patients get back to where they need to be or where they could get. They gave an example of a patient getting in an accident and then not being able to use their hand as much, which decreased their ability to brush their teeth. Then explained how to set goals of working the patient back to being able to hold a toothbrush. Looking back, I remember seeing the power that the occupational therapist was able to give back to the patient encouraging me explore the field by volunteering and leading the students with disabilities group in high school. Eventually impacting my decision on my college major being psychology with extracurriculars in the sciences. Where I learned the aspects of the human body and combined them with the mental/cognitive parts of the body. For example, when occupational therapy first developed into a field, it focused more on the people in society who had mental issues and were viewed as a danger. Which then expanded from different areas of science into the field it is now as it developed from psychology, nursing, Physical Therapy, and orthopedics within the medical field and applying it to how to give a patient care. So, learning about both areas solidified why I wanted to do OT. However, when I started taking anatomy and Physiology, it just clicked especially being in the professor’s class and learning from the way they taught, as the tailored one on one teaching to each student. It made everything make sense in that what I wanted to do was connected to what I was learning. (fix this wording!!!)
One of the reasons behind my motivation for service is partly because I had great educators in the past, and the teachers I had in middle school and high school that created my love for learning and science and taught me how to best learn. Their willingness to step aside and help break hard topics down enabled me to teach myself how to learn and do the best that I could do with the difficulty I did have in school. Because they took the time with me, it makes me want to do the same with my patients. Being able to relate to that, I know how hard it can be, and I like that same respect to be applied to them so the days that they are feeling down and not mentally wanting to be there. I want to make sure that I constantly strives to do what’s best for a patient while being a light, and motivator.
Another motivation for service comes from the characteristic of empathy is that step further of putting others before yourself by living out life with a serving attitude. Connecting with patients on that deeper level in a professional manner impacts the quality of a person’s care. When a professional cares about the patient and their job, it enables them to be adaptive and creative. This would hopefully transcribe into how the patient perceives treatment and is improving.
Faith is another driving factor in who I am and why I want to be an occupational therapist. Faith is the little things because part of Faith is realizing that we don’t always see what or why something is happening. In OT, that applies to patients and the improvements they may or may not see because they are “little improvements” that are occurring which are just as important. I feel like it’s your job as a provider to explain that and help them understand why they are where they are. Even though they might not be able to do something, they might have been able to once it is helping them adopt a way of thinking that accepts who they are and not their disability. For example, when doing hours at Swan Rehab Clinic, I observed a patient on two different occasions a month apart. Being able to see their progress a month later, and even though it was small to them, I could see a huge difference. Commenting on the little things they improved on got them more excited during the session. When they had not been able to, it led to moments of difficulty in finding motivation and believing that therapy was not making a difference.
The difference between occupational therapy and physical is essential to know and recognize how they are networked together to benefit patient care. While observing Physical therapy at Accel and from afar at Swan Rehab, one can see how the goals between the two therapies are also crucial for what is going on in the patient’s overall care. For example, at Accel, the school for students with disabilities, and observing a Physical therapist, I asked how the two correlated and what was different. She had said that the goals set by Occupational Therapy focused on aided in what the Physical therapist was working on. For example, patients could be working on delivering mail to rooms and having to participate in movements used in activities of daily living. Such as picking things up and grabbing those or a handle while walking up the stairs, as fine motor movement is focused on in Occupational Therapy, and the being able to bend down or move their arm, walk, and go upstairs as the Physical therapy gross movements. So, they are different in that they might be focusing on more minor movements, Occupational Therapy, and the more significant movement aspect of Physical therapy. It is the bigger picture of how they work together for patient care rather than what makes them different.
Concluding paragraph:
Things to add or change
To observe in different settings and see how Occupational Therapy works day-to-day lives of patients. As well as being able to view it in my experience as a physiotherapist tech at a chiropractic office. Where I was able to communicate and teach the patients what was happening while empathizing with them as someone who has the desire to give them back a little bit of that independence and freedom from the pain that dictates their life currently. (add if can but don’t force it)
Talk about the fact that you enjoy that OT gives patients their independence
grammatical sentence structure or like capitalization punctuation type things (too long of sentences run ons)
Need to adapt the paragraph on the differences between occupational therapy and physical therapy two where it sounds like I’ve learned it and not just explaining something that the reader at the college might already know same goes for the first paragraph when talking about what OT is saying it more in the sense of what I learned it was so changing the wording
(less telling more of what I learned (don’t want to say something they already know))
talking more on or emphasizing more directly the core competencies I have
my strengths, motivations, suitability for OT needed to be more clear
Motivation for a career in healthcare
A desire to give patients a level of independence back
Relevant personal strengths
Adaptable, dependable, ambitious, hardworking, respectful, empathetic, sociable, passionate, articulate, helpful
Core competencies
Conflict resolution, emotional intelligence, communication skills, problem solving, motivation, leadership, organizational ability, continuous learning culture
Need a concluding paragraph
Need to make my desire to pursue the career more clear and how I could contribute to the field
needs to be at or around 7500 characters
Making sure these are made clear:
- Anatomy and physiology – class was a game changer, Professor Wireman’s approach was on another level, if students didn’t understand something he would adapt and re-phrase (we talked about how you will act as an educator to your future patients and how much educators and learning means to you)
What I mean about how I will take what I learned from past educators and apply it to my future job because that shows that shows my motivation of service like what is one of my reasons of motivation of service is partly due to the fact that I had great educators in the past teachers like professor wireman who’s going to read this and I’m going to be very awkward about it ’cause he’s literally going to be in my paper and personal statement
- Empath and serving others
- Visualize a path to serving patients
- Chiro office and patient care experience
- Caring deeply about people and offering quality care
- Being there for patients every step of the way
- Swan – observation, seeing the improvement and independence
- Seeing the difference, a month makes to a patient’s progress
- OT is seeing it’s all the little things that make up the big picture – What you LOVE
- Going outside of the box and finding creative solutions to problems, adapting to patient needs and knowing that might look different from day-to-day/session-to-session
