Reflection

      Occupational therapy is, in my opinion, one the most difficult professions to define/explain, therefore, understanding how to maintain professionalism within OT is complex. Throughout my first semester of graduate school I have expanded my current knowledge of professionalism and gained new knowledge with regards to the profession of OT. Here, I will reflect on how this professional development course provided me the skills to think critically as a professional, figure out my strengths and weaknesses, and apply the values and principles the OT community stands for within my practice. I learned the importance of being a lifelong learner and how to utilize this skill in school and when I become a licensed professional to help me provide the most well rounded occupational therapy that I can. In order to do this, I also learned about the extreme value of taking into account each client’s culture, practicing cultural competence, and understanding my implicit biases when providing OT services. 

When I started graduate school I had already been in the workforce for a few years. I was working full time as an early start therapist and registered behavior technician before I decided to go back to school to pursue occupational therapy. Within this first semester, I not only gained a better understanding of what OT is, its theories, and models, I learned how to be a better professional in this field. Within this specific course we completed worksheets that helped open our eyes to what our professional strengths (compassion and encouragement) and weaknesses (assertiveness) are (Taylor, 2020).  We discussed the principles/values that must be abided by to lawfully/ethically practiced OT and worked through real life situations and case studies that allowed us to put what we learned into practice. These case studies were extremely beneficial when understanding complicated situations that will inevitably occur throughout our profession. In order to solve these real life problems, we needed to reference Scott’s four step decision making process, decide what principle was being violated, how to address this issue, and reflect on the consequences, whether it be good or bad, so we can better address a later similar issue (Scott & Reitz, 2017). The principles of OT consist of beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, justice, veracity, fidelity. Each principle is complex and involves different areas of the profession that as a whole address OT’s core values and how to properly practice. I personally worked on a group presentation that focused on the principle of justice. Within this principle, an OT practitioner must promote fairness and objectivity within their occupational therapy services and this includes full inclusion in everyday meaningful activities no matter the client’s background, abilities, culture, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, or any other aspect of a client’s identity (Scott & Reitz, 2017). 

     When discussing the importance of lifelong learning, it seemed apparent why we all need to continue and pursue expanded knowledge as professionals and even as a student right now. I have to have some sort of working knowledge on what constitutes ethical practice as a therapist in early start and applied behavioral analysis and have a code of ethics to follow as well in this field. However, this profession and OT have differences and although the ethics are very similar, there are logistical differences to take into account. No matter how much I knew before regarding ethics, I still had a lot to learn. This is lifelong learning! If I were to be close minded and believe I know what I need to know and act as if my basic assumptions of ethical practice are all there is to know, I wouldn’t thrive as an OT or probably even graduate from this program. The in-depth knowledge I gained in this course regarding OT principles and values gave me brand new eyes and the ability to see how an OT might address each principle during my fieldwork observations. For example, where I completed my observation hours, I personally noticed my fieldwork educator abiding by beneficence on my first day when dealing with a tantrum and instinctively making sure the client was in a safe space and others around were safe, then implementing strategies to support the client to reach a deescalated state. Then she abided by non-maleficence when remaining calm and providing empathetic and achievable strategies to try and calm their nervous system so that they may re engage in session. 

     I was fortunate to discuss the principle of Justice in depth during this course. Justice, I believe, helps pave the way for gaining the skill of cultural competence, cultural responsiveness, cultural humility, and cultural intelligence that are necessary when providing services. Cultural competence is the understanding that all individuals have their own cultural routines, habits, ideas, and not all belonging to a certain culture have the same experiences. Cultural responsiveness is the ability to adapt one’s own beliefs when taking into account another culture. Cultural humility is being able to identify your own biases with a willingness to grow and learn more about your own culture and others. Cultural intelligence is the ability to be competent, responsive, and humble in order to collaborate and work with others of different backgrounds, cultures, and identities. Our readings and discussions helped discriminate between each concept and better define them as separate ideals to think about when providing services. Understanding my cultural bias was a concept that, again, seemed straightforward and something I had a handle on. However, as a lifelong learner keeping an open mind, I learned a lot more about it that I hadn’t known or thought of before when discussing our cultures and experiences as a class. Again shedding light on how this skill will only help me and my classmates build on our skills as OT practitioners. I mustn’t forget that everyone I will work with will have come from different backgrounds, acquired different skill sets, and adhere to different values from myself. I need to be mindful of this so that I might not allow implicit bias (e.g., able bodied female) to affect my practice. 

     Throughout this course I learned valuable professional problem solving and critical thinking skills that I truly believe will help me achieve success as an OT practitioner.  “Occupations- all the things we do throughout our day- are simple and full of complexity, ordinary and extraordinary, and saturated with meaning” (Cohn, 2019). Occupational therapy can be complicated to define and intervention strategies require complex problem solving skills. This professional development course helped me gain the problem solving skills I need to thrive within OT and forced me to reflect on the principles in a way that will follow me on my journey towards becoming a licensed professional and throughout my professional journey as well. Am I abiding by beneficence, veracity, justice, etc? If I am not, or others around me are not, what do I need to do to correct this? I can now better answer these questions due to everything I have learned these past 16 weeks, and I am very grateful for this.