Pediatrics Wrap-Up
I've been meaning to write a little something about the conclusion of my pediatrics fieldwork for a while now. However, life got pretty busy and I'm only just able to sit down and do it now even though it has been over for nearly two weeks. I've had a lot of time to reflect upon on my experience, especially now that I have started my second placement in a very different environment.
A while back, I wrote about how I was fairly sure that I didn't want to work with children. To recap, it wasn't because I don't like children. It was because it is sometimes hard for me to see people so young struggling to do basic things that everyone else takes for granted. With older people, they have frequently had a period of time in their life where they existed completely unimpaired. Many of the children OTs see don't know what this is like at all.
At my fieldwork, I worked with both children in the general school population and children under the heading of "life skills", which indicated that they had developmental disabilities in addition to whatever other diagnoses went along with that. While I enjoyed working with all the children, it simultaneously did and did not surprise me that the life skills kids were my favorite to work with.
Some of these children were at a functional level so low that it was hard to even engage them at times. They were in their own little worlds, oblivious to me. Surprisingly, though, several of these children were perfectly content most of the time.
Then it dawned on me. Yes, these children struggle on a day to day basis, but oftentimes they have no other experience to compare that with. What they do each day is what they know. If they are happy with what they know, they aren't unhappy about what they don't know. If they're happy, why shouldn't I be happy?
There are always exceptions. I saw a few children so overwhelmed by sensory difficulties, seizure disorders, or the inability to clearly express their needs that they were obviously not happy. In that case I was glad that I was able to work with them on improving those things, so that eased some of the discomfort. A big part of helping me through that was also the strength, ingenuity, and sheer love, caring, and affection of the vast majority of the people who worked with these children. I definitely met some teachers who deserve to be nominated for sainthood and some PCAs who I think would probably take a bullet or jump in front of a bus for the children they work with. It really drove home to me that these children have incredible support networks and that the OT is an integral part of those networks.
Overall, my pediatrics fieldwork met and exceeded my expectations. It made me wonder if all along I was fooling myself and if maybe I am just meant to work with disabled children, as this is a population I seem to keep coming back to. That is the mark of a good fieldwork placement, I suppose - when you reconsider what you thought you knew because of a positive experience.
That said, I think I am still going to seek something more adult-related when I get out into the work force. School-based pediatric therapy is a great option for later on. For now, though, I want something where I will learn something new every day, where I will be surrounded by other therapy professionals, and where I will have a network of mentors and colleagues to collaborate with. In a school setting it seems like this network is a bit harder to come by because of the more isolated nature of a school therapist. Someday, though, it might be right for me!