Curtis, in this day and age, you would be crazy to do a shower with a child. I like the bathing suit idea, but please make sure there is always another adult present, preferably a parent, for dressing as well. I used to work in a public school. Once, I was working with a preschool girl who had autism, who bit me on the hand during a transition. When the teacher notified the child's mother, the first thing she said to me is "What did you do to her to make her bite you?" There were others around so it was fine in the end, and she apologized, but I can tell you it was a real wake-up call for me. Be very careful when working with children, we live in a weird world now.
~Ilene Rosenthal, OTR/L Message: 1 Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:54:43 -0500 From: "Curtis Marti" <[email protected]> Subject: [OTlist] Difficult issue To: <[email protected]> Message-ID: <2d3650d1a79d384e9ec334c807d44d6156d...@adccorpexch04.corporate.ahs.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear Listserve, In my 13 years as an OT, I've never been confronted with this situation. I have worked with adults and geriatric patients throughout my career. In my best attempt to cover for a pediatric OT several days this week, I have a treatment plan for a 15 year old girl that involves bathing. I'm a guy, a guy that feels uncomfortable working on this activity with a girl of that age group, where modesty is even more of an issue than is in for older females. It goes without saying that I would have a female present throughout the entire treatment involving bathing. But in this situation, no other OT's are any more experienced in pediatrics than I am and this patient has been assigned to me. Would I defer the bathing to a non-OT? In so doing, I would not be following the treatment plan and I would be deferring the training to a non-skilled professional. I would appreciate any timely guidance that anyone could offer me. Thank you, Curtis -- Options? www.otnow.com/mailman/options/otlist_otnow.com Archive? www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
