Guess what? I just met my very first patient today!
Our Clinical Training Coordinator said that they'll ease us into this whole thing. I've never been more grateful my entire life. I only had ONE patient today and, man, did he tire me out. I feel exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. I still can't quite imagine how I'll manage doing this ALL DAY, EVERY DAY.
It feels so different to be prepared for something. I've always had the HORRIBLE habit of leaving things to the very last minute (sometimes even literally the VERY LAST MINUTE). After all my preparations since yesterday, I felt more confident about my session than I ever have before. I guess this is how productive people feel. I must admit, I love feeling like this SOOOO much.
Coming prepared for a session down to every single detail emphasized one very important lesson for me today.
After three years of gearing up to this phase of my college life, I think I have grown to expect this ideal picture of how an OT session should be like. This afternoon's session served as one huge reality check for me. Apparently, no matter how hard you prepare for it, your session won't ever go exactly as planned. I should get that tattooed somewhere.
I was confident about my plans when I started the session, but actually interacting with my client threw me off my high horse. My experience today forced me to rethink almost all of my activity plans. It was definitely very demanding to face that kind of challenge right on my first session but it made me stop and think about what I can do to manage sessions like this in the future.
Being able to think on my feet... that's one thing I need to improve on. There are so many activities that I can do with my patient and I just need to learn how to use and apply each activity to improve whatever skill the client needs in order to do his/her targeted goal. After all, that's why we have these sessions in the first place. These people pay money to receive the services we offer, the least we can do is make it worth their money and their time by providing activities that actually help them.
For now, I still find it difficult to see whether what I'm doing actually helps my client. In the future, I hope I would be confident to say that I've made a positive impact on my patients' lives.
Our Clinical Training Coordinator said that they'll ease us into this whole thing. I've never been more grateful my entire life. I only had ONE patient today and, man, did he tire me out. I feel exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. I still can't quite imagine how I'll manage doing this ALL DAY, EVERY DAY.
It feels so different to be prepared for something. I've always had the HORRIBLE habit of leaving things to the very last minute (sometimes even literally the VERY LAST MINUTE). After all my preparations since yesterday, I felt more confident about my session than I ever have before. I guess this is how productive people feel. I must admit, I love feeling like this SOOOO much.
Coming prepared for a session down to every single detail emphasized one very important lesson for me today.
After three years of gearing up to this phase of my college life, I think I have grown to expect this ideal picture of how an OT session should be like. This afternoon's session served as one huge reality check for me. Apparently, no matter how hard you prepare for it, your session won't ever go exactly as planned. I should get that tattooed somewhere.
I was confident about my plans when I started the session, but actually interacting with my client threw me off my high horse. My experience today forced me to rethink almost all of my activity plans. It was definitely very demanding to face that kind of challenge right on my first session but it made me stop and think about what I can do to manage sessions like this in the future.
Being able to think on my feet... that's one thing I need to improve on. There are so many activities that I can do with my patient and I just need to learn how to use and apply each activity to improve whatever skill the client needs in order to do his/her targeted goal. After all, that's why we have these sessions in the first place. These people pay money to receive the services we offer, the least we can do is make it worth their money and their time by providing activities that actually help them.
For now, I still find it difficult to see whether what I'm doing actually helps my client. In the future, I hope I would be confident to say that I've made a positive impact on my patients' lives.
