Winter and spring are having a little battle in Indiana as we keep oscillating between warm and snowy days, like when I woke up to 8 inches one Sunday morning! Do you have oscillating seasons to your yearly career, times when you are blah like winter and times when every idea is new and fresh like spring? I sure do. I find that my blah seasons are when I forget why I do what I do and I am completely overwhelmed with the protocols required to do what I do. How do you get out of that blah season? Personally, I find that focusing on an OT student helps because I want to show them all the wonderful facets of our profession and it reminds me that we are truly in a special field. A field that not only gets down to the nuts and bolts about why something isn’t going the way it should but also a field that looks at and even beyond the whole person.
I am currently wrapping up time with Melanie Browne, a doctoral OT student working on her capstone. The capstone project challenged her to create a program that combined a handwriting program with ABA programming allowing for very objective standards on which our behavior technicians are able to take data when teaching handwriting. While in the process of doing this, she delved into the topic of interdisciplinary collaboration and its role here in our center along with other service models. This is such a big part of our success within our centers.
As this was my first time supervising a doctoral student, a new season definitely blossomed in my career as Melanie and I were able to have more in-depth conversations about her project, treatment ideas, interdisciplinary collaboration, the future of our field as we head down the doctoral path and how we see the field in the future. I enjoyed the new challenge of helping guide her in her project versus solely focusing on clinical skills.
So as Melanie is ready to begin a new season in her career, I wish her more sunny seasons than winter seasons. I also wish the same for all who are reading this; essentially, that you are able to identify what motivates you to start better seasons in your career. Happy Occupational Therapy Month and Happy Autism Awareness Month!
*Melanie is planning to submit her poster proposal for the 2018 IOTA conference, the 2018 HABA conference and the 2019 AOTA conference.
