Month: April 2018

Service Project

For my 40 hour service project, I combined two different sites of service. The common theme in my two service sites is volunteering with children.

For the majority of my service, I volunteered at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in the Reach Out and Read program. For this role, I read to and with children in a primary care facility who were waiting for their doctor’s appointment. I was also responsible for promoting continued reading at home and school. I gained 33 hours of service through this site.

My other source of service hours was through College Mentors for Kids. This program is a partnership between local elementary schools and OSU. Students from first through fifth grade come to OSU once a week and are paired with a mentor. Every week is a new activity that we all participate in together. These activities are meant to teach the students about college life and their future choices in careers. Although the program is educational and the students are learning, they also have a lot of fun and look forward to coming to OSU every week. I got the last 7 of my required service hours through this program.

Informational Interview

For my interview, I spoke Amy Newtown, a family friend who is a Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant (COTA). I asked her several questions about her work and why she chose to specialize in this type of work.

She works as a smaller hospital in both acute care and inpatient rehabilitation settings. She shared that she usually sees about 14 patients a day, from around 8 AM to 5 PM with a break for lunch. She said that she works with a wide variety of patient diagnoses, including: strokes, heart surgeries, and hip and knee replacement surgeries. In her treatments, she works with patients to improve their activities of daily living (ADLs) like bathing, dressing, and grooming. She also works with them on home exercise programs for arms and cognitive retraining.

When I asked her why she chose Occupational Therapy, she told me that she always knew she wanted to work in the medical field. When making her career choice, she was deciding between nursing and OT. She believed that OT would be a better fit for her personal qualities and skills. She also shared that her favorite part of her job was seeing a patient in some of the worst times of their life and being able to help them get better and return home.

She also shared with me advice for someone just starting out in the field. She told me to make sure that I know the diagnoses, abbreviations, and precautions and how those apply to you as a therapist. She also said to make sure to ask questions and utilize the resources you have like your professors and instructors in school.