Hi Ron; I think you're *so* right about the value of occupation and the fact that Occupational Therapy has so much to offer. As you can imagine from the ALOFT project something had to kick me and us into action. It was many days like the one you described. I am constantly fighting a battle to have OT brought up in the same sentence of along with PT. PT is the solution for everything. I have a staff of almost three times as many PTs than OTs (not as bad as 15 to 3 but they have an OT as a manager and I've been building... it was 7:1 when I started). But even now, in tight financial times, having most of the administrators, doctors, healthcare workers and PTs themselves not know much about or place much value in OTs is not much fun.
Can we change it? As you know, I personally believe that "Functional Therapy" would be a better term to describe our work. In the past when I've said "function" people have rapidly turned to physical function as if to peg me down (I am actually on the other side, wanting the PTs I manage to expand into at least screening cognition and having treatments be driven towards functional things patients will need to do). Truly the definition of 'Function' contains much more of what we as Occupational Therapists espouse. 'Function' is synonymous with words like "role", "purpose", "use", etc. In my thinking the word 'occupation' as we know and live it is not understandable to the general public, our definition of Occupation *is not in the dictionary* so why should we think it is obvious? Check out http://registeredfunctionaltherapist.blogspot.com/2009/05/argument-for-functional-therapy.html for the visual thesaurus version. I know that you are a fan of the word "Occupation" in its own right. I like words, I think this one is a great one and helps us expand our thoughts. But how many times will we be having to try to explain what we do to people who have seen us do it time and again? I think it's up to us, as OTs, to reach out to the public. I'm asking you to look at the possible benefits of an alternative name. Go ahead and bounce "maybe it would make more sense if we were called 'functional therapy'" off of your colleagues just to see if it is more intuitive. In the meantime you and I are still trying to popularize the same philosophy and methods. What would the world lose if it didn't have the OT perspective? I think a lot. I hope you'll check out www.FunctionalTherapist.org<http://www.functionaltherapist.org/>again. We need great and dedicated therapists like you Ron. Yours, Ed Kaine, OTR, RFT President of the American League of Functional Therapists On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 8:27 PM, Ron Carson <[email protected]> wrote: > I am just about at the end of a very long road of trying to change my > profession. > > No one seems to value occupation as an outcome. I refuse to see > patient's with the purpose of improving UE function so my HH agency just > calls other OT's who will. PT's don't appreciate occupation but it > encroaches on their treatment. My agency is clueless about occupation > and has no reason to learn about it. > > I so value what I do and I believe that most of my patient's do as well. > Most of them can not articulate occupation or occupational therapy but > they do know that I'm there to teach them two things: > > 1. How to take care of themselves > > 2. How to be productive > > I almost cried when I left my agency's staff meeting today. EVERTHING is > about PT, PT, PT, and how wonderful they are. There must be like 15 PT's > while there is only 3 OT's. It's really a sad state of affairs. I am > tired of going from "hero to zero". Hero with patients and zero with my > agency and other therapists. > > The other day a nurse with 24 years experience told a patient that OT > was about small muscles and PT was about gait and large muscle groups. I > promptly called the nurse and explained that OT is about occupation - > i.e. take care of yourself and being productive. She said, that she > didn't know and that even after all these years she really has no idea > what OT does. She suggested that I call my agency and do an inservice. > Now can you even imagine that a home health agency needs an inservice on > the role of OT!! Sad state of affairs. > > Am I the ONLY OT who experiences and feel these emotions??????????????? > Gosh, I hope not. But then on the other hand, maybe it's just me. Maybe > I just refuse to accept the way things are. Maybe I'm just a > self-centered egotist who is totally clueless about OT. I truly, truly > don't understand WHY "things" are the way they are. And more > importantly, what can be done, if anything, to change the direction of > UE physical dysfunction OT. > > > -- > Options? > www.otnow.com/mailman/options/otlist_otnow.com > > Archive? > www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > -- Options? www.otnow.com/mailman/options/otlist_otnow.com Archive? www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
