Hi all, I'm one of the newbies so thought I'd jump right in. Not too sure how to do this but we'll see what happens.
I would like to comment on the Functional Therapist title. I guess my concern with that is that it fragments OT's even more and will just confuse people even further about what we do. I agree that there is always a bit of a problem with explaining what we do and people being able to identify our scope of practice. There is no easy answer to that except what you can achieve as an individual OT by differentiating yourself in your team and with your clients. I really don't get this issue very much in my place of work and that is because all members of our team have good understanding and great respect for the role of OT so the client gets it from all corners. We also provide written information explaining the role of each member of the team. I have worked in places in the past where this has been an issue and in my experience it was the places where people on my own team hadn't a clue what OT was. If you can get your team on board (easy said than done I bet!) I think it makes a big difference. In our team the biggest influence I feel is the consultant doctor, if they value what we do they will project this to the client and the rest of the team and it flows from there. I acknowledge that our meaning of occupation is quite different to what most people think of, but I feel that as a profession we are too established internationally to go changing that. You'd never get everyone to agree. It would be better to continue promoting the role/meaning of occupational therapy than confuse people even more. Angela -- Options? www.otnow.com/mailman/options/otlist_otnow.com Archive? www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
