Prior to starting OT school, I shadowed at an outpatient rehab clinic. It was an incredible experience, and the OTs always made sure to include me in conversations with clients as well as explain to me what they were doing in a session. When I started shadowing, I had no idea what to expect. I had never seen an OT session before and did not know what they typically looked like. In terms of "gray" areas, there were a lot of those (at least for me). I did not understand the point of quite a few of the activities, and the patients, while kind and grateful, did not fully see the point in many of the exercises they did either. Sometimes they would even express to the OT that they felt as though they were making no progress. Looking back on it now, the majority of what I saw the OTs have clients do were the arm bikes, bands, etc. While these things are great preparatory activities, I never saw the OTs do anything more than this in sessions with clients. I still did not understand a lot of the occupational therapy process, so I grew to expect this to be the vast majority of what OTs do. Now that I am in OT school, I see that this is not all that OTs do. Occupational therapists do so many different things, and it excites me that there are vast opportunities in this field. I did not understand what these preparatory exercises were for previously, but now I see that they were for preparing the clients for further interventions. Now that I have learned more about OT, I see that with these methods and materials combined with meaningful tasks to the patient, OT interventions can be much more successful.
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