Q&A: Fieldwork at the Occupational Therapy Institute

In this podcast, we talk with two second-year occupational therapy (OT) students, Xin Song and Michelle Berg, who are completing their fieldwork at the Occupational Therapy Institute (OTI) of Salus University. They talk to us about the unique clinical and management skills that they've gained, and how they'll utilize them in their future healthcare careers. 

Q: Can you explain what the Occupational Therapy Institute is and how it functions?

Berg: OTI is a clinical training site for OT students, offering diverse clinical experiences. The clinic offers outpatient, pediatric, and adult assessments and screenings with individual and group intervention sessions. The goal is to promote increased independence in activities of daily living in our clients, which includes feeding, bathing, dressing, household management, education, play, and social participation.

Song: OTI at Salus University is committed to providing high quality, evidence-based, complimentary services to underserved populations in the greater Philadelphia region.

Q: What is your role at OTI?

Song: Our role began like any other level two fieldwork, with some active observation and taking over the responsibilities of the OT and director Dr. Brianna Brim. At this point, we are providing intervention sections to the patients supervised by Brianna. This includes evaluations, interventions, and documentation, as well as managing the clinic by scheduling, providing resources to clients, and creating social media content to promote our profession and get involved in community opportunities.

Q: What have you learned during your time at OTI?

Berg: OTI is a really unique clinic and setting because it is a pro bono clinic and we can therefore provide different resources and receive interesting referrals that some other clinics do not have. We always want to be a resource for our clients, and as students we can create and find resources to provide helpful information to them. We learn skills to evaluate and treat patients by taking a holistic view of their personal factors, their interests, and current presentations.

Song: We learned how to interact with other professionals, such as receiving referrals from low vision, optometry and referring patients to speech-language pathology or physical therapy and more. And although we do not bill insurance, we still document as if we do, so we can be competent in our documentation skills. We also learned many soft skills such as organization and time management, with all the responsibilities we carry here.

Q: Why do you think it is beneficial to have this clinical experience?

Berg: This clinical exposure is different from some other fieldwork placements because students have the opportunity to manage the clinic and gain skills in areas which are not common elsewhere. We do all the day-to-day management, such as scheduling, answering phone calls and emails, providing resources, social media content, and community events. We also have the opportunity to supervise level one students, give them feedback on projects, and answer questions that they have. And this is really helpful for the future, since we hope to have supervision opportunities as OT clinicians. So in addition to all the clinical skills that we're gaining, we're also gaining all these management skills here as well.

Q: What will you take away with you into your future OT careers that you learned at OTI?

Song: The clinical management is something that will help us in the future. Providing client-centered service to the patient is another big takeaway from this experience. Last, but not least, our soft skills such as teamwork, and how to collaborate with others are great tools that we will take with us into any future setting.

Q: Is there just anything else you would like to add?

Berg: Completing this fieldwork rotation at OTI had its challenges, just like any other OT fieldwork placement, but we felt fully equipped with our education from Salus University, and with the high level of supervisor support that we had in this setting. So overall, we had a great experience and we learned a lot professionally.

To learn more about the Occupational Therapy Institute, visit SalusUhealth.com/OTI.