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My classmate Sarah is seriously considering running off with the circus for her Occupational Therapy international fieldwork experience! She’ll be joining a group called CircusAID. The program is being developed as a branch of Holistic Circus Therapy that worked with Syrian, Afghani, and Iraqi refugees in Lesvos, Greece, where thousands of refugees were arriving by boat almost daily, experiencing occupational deprivation.

Read more about what CircusAID will be doing:
http://wanderlust.com/journal/a-circus-act-that-serves-a-smile-to-refugees/

Last Academic Semester. I’m writing this from the BART train. Today begins my last academic semester at San Jose State University, studying for my Master’s of Occupational Therapy degree. This summer and fall I’ll be doing fieldwork. Then in January I’ll take the NBCOT. Passing that, I’ll be an Occupational Therapist!

Last semester was rough. The stress of the program, lack of sleep, very long hours, and isolation took it’s toll on me and my family. I feel like I’m ducking into a long, dark tunnel for another four months. Please wish us well.

My resolve to complete my OT Master’s degree has been reinforced. This week I received a grant from the  Viola Palmer Memorial Scholarship.

Here is an edited snippet from my Thank you letter:

Grad school takes a lot of focus and I’ve got a lot of things going on in my life: a beautiful 8 month old baby, a new wife, some medical conditions that go along with aging,  and a 5 hr daily commute.

The money is important for paying bills but  the idea that a stranger would help me get through grad school is revitalizing. It speaks to your confidence in this path and faith in my success. There are times when I am low on confidence and faith; you restore me. Thank you.

Hey, this is starting to look real!
Here’s a flyer for one of our community programs.

My backpack is juuuust right.

Classmate Nathan Nam and I weigh my backpack as part of the San Jose State University Occupational Therapy Department’s
Backpack Awareness Day!

I am looking to interview a person with Parkinson’s disease that is between 40 and 65 years old for one of my Occupational Therapy Master’s program classes at San Jose State University. Any help you could give in finding an interviewee would be greatly appreciated. The interview will take maybe twenty minutes to an hour and focus is on how Parkinson’s affects their daily life. I believe the interview and the followup could be valuable for everyone involved.

All discussions will be held with the same confidentiality as any medical professional. You can contact me here.

Dr. Adolf Meyer meets Dr. Herbert Hall

We gave presentations in History of OT class. I presented a speech written by my classmates and I as Dr. Adolf Meyer, one of the foundational inspirations of OT in America. My classmate Casey presented as Dr. Herbert Hall. We all rocked.

Thanks to my brother-in-law Jeff for the 1920’s suit. It looked gooooood!

Here’s my current commute:

• Drive to North Berkeley Bart 11 minutes and park. $2.50/day
• Train BART to Fremont, 50 minute ride, $8 round trip
• Bus VTA 181 express to downtown San Jose, 40 minute ride, $0.00 with my SJSU pass ($8 round trip w/o)
• Walk 10 minute to class

It usually takes 2 hours, 30 minutes door to door.

The train/bus runs every 15 minutes like clockwork all day.
I always get a seat on the train, almost always a seat on the bus (the folks coming on the train from San Francisco sometimes have to stand)
I usually get about an hour of work done on the train with my laptop tethered to the internet on my phone. And I usually get just a bit carsick on the bus. :-(

I’ll be entering an Occupational Therapy Master’s Program at San Jose State University in August. What is OT?  Here is an article about it from NPR.

(via)

Transcript:

ARI SHAPIRO, host:

Some people are calling the current economic downturn a man session – really. That’s because the jobless rate for men is about 2 percent higher than it is for women. While it is more of a struggle for men to find a job than women in this economy, men take note: One profession needs and wants more male bodies, and it even pays well.

Jenee Darden reports.

Mr. FARLEY HOM (Occupational Therapist): How bad is your pain, from one to 10?

JENEE DARDEN: Farley Hom is an occupational therapist. Today, he’s helping a patient at a rehab center for seniors in Southern California. The elderly man recently fractured bones in his neck after a fall. Hom tries to help the man move from his wheelchair to his bed on his own.

Mr. HOM: We’ll see when you can have your pain meds next, OK? You want pain medication?

DARDEN: Hom has been an occupational therapist for 15 years. In case youre wondering, OT and physical therapy are not the same.

Mr. HOM: To this day, even my parents have difficulty explaining to their friends what I do for a living.

DARDEN: Here’s how he breaks it down.

Mr. HOM: Occupational therapists help people to be as independent as possible with their activities of daily living. That can be anything from getting themselves dressed to brushing their teeth to driving.

DARDEN: Hom is the only male OT at the center, which is not unusual. Men make up only 10 percent of therapists. Historically, the profession has focused on recruiting women. Now, it’s pushing for gender balance and actively reaching out to men. Hom says they want workers to be diverse, like the people they serve. For instance…

Mr. HOM: A male might prefer another male to be with him in the bathroom when we’re working on toileting issues, simply because of dignity issues, privacy issues.

DARDEN: But Hom says there’s a growing need for OT’s in general, especially as baby boomers retire. Labor Department stats back this up. They show occupational therapy growing more than 20 percent over the next few years.

Mr. HOM: I’ve always been able to find work. I’ve never had a problem finding work.

DARDEN: Now that’s something you rarely hear today, and the pay isn’t bad, either. In California, an OT fresh out of grad school can start making up to $80,000 a year. Nationwide, the mean salary is about 67 grand. Good pay, steady work and a demand for male workers – in the so-called man session, why aren’t more men signing up?

Mr. SHAWN PHIPPS (President, Occupational Therapy Association of California): I think occupational therapy is one of those best kept secrets.

DARDEN: Shawn Phipps is president of the Occupational Therapy Association of California.

(Soundbite of children chattering)

DARDEN: On this day, he supervises therapists at a rehab center for kids with disabilities. He says people dont know about the profession, and a number of those who do view it as women’s work.

Mr. PHIPPS: I think that occupational therapy is sometimes seen as a caretaking profession like nursing, and men traditionally have not been drawn especially to caretaking professions.

DARDEN: But OT’s go beyond bedsides. Some work in technology and develop ideas to help people with disabilities function in everyday life. And you can find OT’s treating injured workers.

Mr. PHIPPS: I’m aware of a number of men that work in industrial rehabilitation. An occupational therapist can play a role evaluating that worker’s capability of returning to the workplace.

DARDEN: But Phipps says he notices men are starting to pay attention. He even convinced one of his friends to consider the profession. Sergio Sandoval worked in marketing research for 12 years, but was laid off more than a year ago and can’t find work. Now he plans on applying to an OT graduate program. Sandoval says he made the career switch for a few reasons.

Mr. SERGIO SANDOVAL (Occupational Therapy Student): The ability to work with people with disabilities to make a difference in their lives, and to also have steady work and create a future for myself.

DARDEN: And the perks dont stop at steady work, whether youre a man or a women. Money Magazine recently listed occupational therapy as one of the least stressful jobs in the country.

For NPR’s, I’m Janee Darden in Los Angeles.

This fall I’ll be starting grad school, pursuing a Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy. This road began a few years ago when my dad, after seeing a newspaper article about the field of Radiation Therapy, suggested I consider it as a new career. The article said that the work was steady and the money good. As part of my road toward becoming a Radiation Therapy Tech, I volunteered in a hospital and figured out very quickly that Radiation Therapy is not for me! Maybe it’s for you. Read on and decide for yourself.

Let me tell you a story.

RTT (Radiation Therapy Technology) isn’t for me, but probably not for the reason you think. Most people think that the danger of the X-rays, or dealing with sick people is difficult. First, the X-rays aren’t an issue: the beam is so incredibly lethal that there are many interlocks to make sure you never get near it. And it’s not dealing with sick people, heck all the people you see are healthy enough to make it into an 8 week course of treatment shooting death rays at their head and stuff. Read on.

I spent a day volunteering in the Radiation Therapy department of a local hospital. I was in the middle of a 6 month volunteership in the Radiology department of the hospital (but that is a different story). In Radiation Therapy, I got to watch the tech and the nurse do their thing for about 5 hours. I saw them work with patients, operate giant death ray, and chat between one another.

The control room in the hospital’s basement is quiet except for the incessant “bip.. bip.. bip.. bip.. bip.. bip..” of the machine telling you the beam is on. You see, although everything is pretty straightforward, the solemnity and responsibility of firing a huge death ray straight into people’s vital organs (and hopefully missing the healthy bits) requires quite a bit of focus. One mistake could spell a gruesome death for a patient. The room looks like  one of those 1950’s science fiction movies where people in white coats operate Big Science machines, which is fascinating and all except that all those movie scenes lasted waaaay too long. This is no exception.

I’ll be frank, I found the job mind numbingly boring, non-interactive, and sad. What they did was quite simple:

1. bring the patient into the treatment room
2. strap them down
3. leave the room
4. watch the patient on a TV monitor while administering the treatment, finger hovering over the “stop death ray!” button
5. turn the dial every couple minutes to start a different treatment (a treatment which has been chosen by the prescribing doctor down the hall)
6. unstrap them
7. walk them out
8. repeat every 15 minutes for 30 years

The worst is what happened when I asked two folks that worked there about their work.

I chatted with the nurse and got her in a good mood. Then I asked if she liked working in Radiation Therapy and she said… well, here’s how the conversation went:
Lee: Do you love your job?
Nurse: [hesitation and then ] Well……
Lee: Do you like your job?
Nurse: [her shoulders fell a little]
Lee: Do you not hate your job? (I’m thinking “Oh my god, what if she doesn’t answer this third question, where the hell do we go from there?!”)
Nurse: Well… [she paused and then spoke slowly and with a bit of sadness] it’s sad when you see patients continue to come in and keep getting worse. And it’s especially bad when a patient stops coming in mid-way through treatment because… well, you know.

And that’s all she had to say about her job . . . . to a new volunteer! Yipe. :-(

I chatted up one of the Technologists and asked..
Lee: Do you like your job?
Tech: [pausing to give a thoughtful answer. Then he spoke clearly and slowly, looking me straight in the eye] It’s monotonous. It’s not enjoyable. It pays ok but… [and his voice trailed off. It was time to change the subject]

And that’s pretty much how the tech left it. Yow! This is not job satisfaction.

Your mileage may vary but this does not look like the career for me!