At work today another staff member cautioned me to wash my hands often, as there seemed to be a bug in the building. Back in school I remember the importance that was stressed with proper hand washing techniques, before and after treatment with each patient, before and after eating, and after any ADL's. As a teacher I remember teaching the ...

  Some time ago I wrote a blog about COTA salaries, and in it I mentioned that with the increased cost of schooling and decrease in salaries that soon we may see a shortage of people seeking to enter the field. Was that a bad prediction?   The cost of the two required years of OTA school can vary greatly. At the local community ...

  Just the other day I was talking with one of the nurses I work with, and we got into a discussion of wasted dollars in healthcare. One of the patients was upset because for three days in a row the lab nurse came to draw blood. Another patient was mad because they were being sent out to the hospital for a routine procedure that could have ...

  This is a topic I've covered before, but I've always wanted to show the emblem I was given after passing my national exam. It was actually enclosed in the envelope with my passing test results. My certification exam was completed under AOTCB (American Occupational Therapy Certification Board) which used to be a part of AOTA (American ...

     Yesterday I found out where I would be placed for my final level 2.  I will be in acute care in a busy inner-city hospital.  I am a bit anxious about this placement.  Up to this point, I have been in adult day care, pediatric physical disabilities and pediatric development disabilities.  I have ...

Last Friday I did the first half of my second round of student observations. I observed an Occupational Therapist in an outpatient sports medicine and orthopedics clinic (a.k.a. my work). Because the OT is only part time, I had actually never been in the clinic at the same time she was seeing patients so I had no idea what I would be observing. ...

I hope that everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July. With the holiday over my stress level has increased. I picked up some extra hours for the month of July to cover a co-workers vacation and in two weeks I start back to school. With these new hours I am working in a new practice area. I am working in a long term care hospital, it is state ...

I have been a COTA now for seven years and it still never ceases to amaze me how much the full moon affects patients. On Friday night there was a full moon and the day was crazy. I had one patient not speak to me the entire treatment, all because we told her that flip flops were not appropriate footwear. A bunch of patients had increases in pain ...

     How do you explain what Occupational Therapy is to people who have never heard of it? I have an assignment due next week to create a poster with the purpose of promoting, explaining and defining Occupational Therapy. All on one little poster. This has been a challenging project. I find myself having to constantly re-direct ...