Year 2: Week 35-36 - Placement Prep

A weekend to recover after handing in my dissertation and then my brain was turned back on, as we were back into university for our final placement launch session. 

Placement Prep:

This final placement a big step in that it is the start of our transition from students to qualified OTs, which Tryssennar and Perkins (2001) cited in Morley 2006 highlights as the first stage in the transition process and hopefully start our first posts (very scary thought at the moment).

The aims of this placement are, for us to meet the practice requirements required to be eligible for HCPC registration as an occupational therapist. We also need to demonstrate safe, effective and client centred case management skills, by holding an ongoing caseload. We also need to be able to articulate and justify our professional role confidently within a range of settings As we start the transition from student to qualified OT we need to be able to be proactive in taking responsibility for our time, support networks and CPD by making use of opportunities available to us on placement and be to evaluate our own knowledge base and performance to further enhance learning and effectiveness within the work base setting through being critical and reflective of our practice. 

For anyone who hasn't heard about my final placement setting... I am spending 10 weeks in acute oncology. Oncology and Palliative care is an area of practice I have a keen interest in working in and I am looking forward to the challenges and learning I'll encounter as I use and develop my skills in a busy acute environment.

Placement Visit:

As part of my preparations for this placement, I went in to visit my placement for the morning last month and chatted to my educator, this was a really positive experience as it allowed me to gather information on what sort of preparation to do prior to starting on the placement and get an idea of what a typical day would include. I also benefited from speaking to the current band 5 who was on rotation in the department about the prep she had done prior to rotating and whether there was any areas she wished she had looked at in more detail prior to starting the rotation. 

Pre Placement Reading:

The visit guided my reading over the last few weeks, and I’m thankful that I chose to use acute oncology for my viva topic earlier in the year as this also gave me a basis of knowledge and resources to use as a starting point as well. On the advice of the band 5, I spent some time looking at the impact treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy and how these treatments and the side effects can impact on occupational performance.   I have also found the following two books really useful as I prepped for this placement:

• Cooper, J. (Ed.). (2013). Occupational therapy in oncology and palliative care. John Wiley & Sons. 
• Boog, K. M., & Tester, C. Y. (2008). Palliative care: a practical guide for the health professional: Finding meaning and purpose in life and death. Elsevier Health Sciences.

It has felt like a really long block in uni this term so I’m looking forward to being back in a clinical environment as a way to consolidate my learning by linking the theory and practice but mostly so that I can enable people do the things that are important and meaningful to them.

As with all my placements I may do small updates throughout and then round up with a longer reflective piece at the end. I have found the small updates increasingly hard as I have gone through placements so I'm not promising to do them every week this time. I will update when I can and then aim to do the round up towards the end.

What else have I been doing over the last few weeks:

COT Website Consultation 

I managed to squeeze in attending the COT website consultation whilst it was in Edinburgh the other week, which was really interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing the end result as there were some really good ideas, and it was really interesting to hear how OTs in practice and students in the area use (or try to use) the website resources within their practice. 

Helping at MSc Interviews:

Last week also gave me a chance to help out at the MSc interviews again. I helped out last year as well, and its a really good chance to chat to perspective students and give them some information about studying on the course. 

It was really interesting this year to actually reflect on how far Ive come in even in just the last year since I helped last time. I remember last time feeling still very overwhelmed by what was to come on the course, I was in the middle of my research proposal and wondering how I was going to manage another year on the course, with the lack of reserves in energy.  But this time I could actually reflect on how much I have learnt and how the experiences on the course have enabled me to develop as a practitioner and prepare me to practice. It's a hard course! You will be pushed further than you ever thought you could! You'll want to quit! But you know what I have developed so much as a person whilst journeying through the process and I'm sure that will continue during the last leg of the course... 

So... One Placement... & One Viva... to go! 

For more insight into my journey to become an occupational therapist; follow me on twitter: @OTontheTracks

References

Morley, M. (2006). Moving from student to new practitioner: The transitional experience. The British Journal of Occupational Therapy, 69(5), 231-233.

Year 2: Week 12 & 13: PP3.5+6

The final 2 weeks of placement started off rather quietly due to #StormDesmond causing flooding in Cumbria - meaning I was stranded in Edinburgh since there were no trains running on the West Coast main line... If thats not an nudge to learn to drive don't know what is?!

I used my days away from placement to work on a case study as I wasn't sure how long I would be stuck in Edinburgh and I wanted to be using the time productively to meet my assessment outcomes. This wasn't on my learning contract but I felt that adapting ways of showing my learning was really important with the uncertainty of the weather. Utilising the case study helped me link the theory behind MOHO to an individual in practise to understand what assessment tools where used and why. 

Thankfully I only missed a couple of days and was glad to get back down, to get on with the practical aspects of placement. The rest of the week focused on a practical AMPS assessment and activity analysis of making a cup of tea with a client and writing up assessments from the end of the previous week. I also had an opportunity to accompany one of the other OTs on a social/welfare visit to client on home leave which was really interesting and a great opportunity to see one of the clients in there own home, this also helped me understand how they can manage positive risk taking with clients in this setting. 

The last week of placement was filled with lots of activities such as Christmas wreath making, baking and an inter-ward mince pie competition. Some of the activities were more successful than others but all in all a great last week.

As I've said before, I will be posting a longer summary of the whole placement in the coming weeks. But for now I'm happy to share I passed this placement and had such a great experience with the team in this setting, I really didnt want to finish this placement as I really did feel part of the team. 

PP2 - Reflections on Adult Social Services

‘8 weeks of equipment and adaptions... It's going to feel like a lifetime.’  - These were my initial thoughts when I found out my PP2 allocation.  It was always going to be hard when I knew from the outset, that it's not a setting I wanted to work once qualified.

This however didn't mean it was not a great learning opportunity for me and over the 8 weeks, I did have the chance to learn more about how home adaptions work and how it can help people access their occupations.  

It also gave me the chance to see the important role Occupational Therapists play in supporting older adults within nursing and care homes within the area - finance aside, the assessment skills of the Occupational Therapists were essential in providing individuals with the right seating options and equipment that they needed to live comfortable and as far as possible allow them to partake safely in daily life within the settings that they live. 

One of my preconceptions of working in this setting was it is all about equipment and adaptions and although this was not all they did in their role; I still found this placement quite challenging especially in accepting the scope of practice for occupational therapists within this setting; having previously worked within health settings and from the theory we are learning at university - I'm used to treating and providing service to an individual in a more holistic manner aiming interventions towards both their physical and mental wellbeing (at least in some regards). I found accepting what we could provide from a social services front limiting - the key in social services is when needed to refer on to health based OTs for aspects that they weren’t able to provide. It was a steep learning curve! This aspect however allowed me to experience interagency working between Social Care and the NHS and how this could benefit the client and the importance of clear communication between agencies helps the client move between these different services.

There were aspects to the occupational therapists role in social service I did find rewarding and positive; for example there was more of an opportunity to build rapport with clients as there was not the same turn over of clients that you would see in an acute hospital setting; I was able to see how this rapport and relationship between client and therapist aided how comfortable a client felt during reviews and when having to make changes to equipment or if issues came up with adaption work.  This aspect of time can also be seen as a rewarding aspect for the OT as they were able to see during equipment reviews how the equipment was helping the client to maintain and access their daily occupations (which is surely what we are all about as occupational therapists). 

I also had the opportunity to see the role occupational therapists play within reablement services; which was a great experience and to me as a ‘baby OT’ still learning and developing, felt like ‘bread and butter OT’. I say this as it involved lots of activity analysis and appeared to be actively helping people do the ‘doing’ of life such as getting in and out the bath and making meals with the aim of reducing care support as the person became more independent with the tasks through grading and adapting the activities; but on reflection I know they are both using the core OT skills; just in different ways; I think I am more confortable with the aspect of restoring people to independence than accepting that decline is also an outcome of health and age. The role of OT within Social Services is crucial if as a country and society we want to enable people to stay in their own home longer and remain as independent as possible. And if equipment and adaption allows individuals with deteriorating health and mobility to do this; we need occupational therapists that are specialist in this area to use their knowledge and skills to provide the service in a cost effective and safe way,

8 weeks of equipment and adaptions… It was only enough time to scratch the surface; on the complex role occupational therapist within the setting, working as case mangers, assessors, home adaptors to name but a few; working with a huge array of individuals with varying degrees of illness, disability, disease and long term conditions; within a persons home environment.

The role of an occupational therapist is so varied and that's why I love it! There is such a mix of different settings to work in and clients to work with, how can it ever be boring! I'll admit I wasn't the most enthusiastic when I first heard of my PP2 placement, but working within a large team of Occupational Therapists, I was able to experience the passion they had for the clients they worked with and the varied role of an OT even within this setting. I could see the importance of supervision for all members of the team and how that impacted them as reflective practitioners and the service they provided.