Working as a health care professional is a rewarding career but is filled with a myriad of complexities to navigate. As alumni, you face these realities every day. Students are learning this too as they navigate their academic courses and clinical experiences.

Serving as a mentor is one-way alumni can support current students and new alumni as they start on or continue their professional journey. Fortunately, according to the results of the recent IHP Alumni Survey, our alumni agree. Almost half of survey respondents indicated that mentoring a current student was a top way that they wanted to engage with the IHP.

The IHP has two alumni mentorship programs running currently, one for BIPOC-identifying students in the MS in Speech - Language Pathology program, and another for Doctor of Physical Therapy students in their third year. With a confirmed alumni interest in mentorship, the Office of Alumni Relations now aims to expand its alumni mentorship program offerings to other disciplines.

Your turn. If you are interested in serving as a mentor in an existing alumni mentorship program or in a future one, please share your interest by completing the Office of Alumni Relations’ AMP Interest Form. This is a great way to engage with the IHP even if you are no longer living in the Boston area!

Photo by Nappy on Unsplash

The IHP Office of Alumni Relations and the Student Government Association (SGA) are partnering to develop a new initiative called the MGH IHP Student and Alumni Network. This initiative is meant to facilitate organic connections between students and alumni, offer students opportunities to gain insight into their life after the IHP, and give alumni an inside view of the IHP today. 

Set to take place on Facebook, this network will also provide alumni with engagement opportunities, job offerings, and a chance to connect and collaborate with fellow alumni.

To learn more about how you can be involved as well as participate in the first brainstorming meeting, click here.

Photo by Pixabay

The IHP is committed to developing the skills of all its community members. In 2018, a program for students called “Power, Privilege, and Positionality (PPP)” was created to acknowledge the existing inequities in healthcare, teach students the necessary skills to provide quality care through an equity and justice lens, and provide students with a safe space to engage in conversations about race and racism. In 2020, the curriculum was revised to help students better develop an intersectional understanding of the sociopolitical context of race and racism in health care. In 2023, the offices of Alumni Relations and Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion created a Power, Privilege, and Positionality course for alumni based on the theme “Health at the Intersection of Race, Gender, and Sexuality.”

The two offices are collaborating again this year to bring the IHP alumni community a new series of offerings based on the 2024 theme “Health at the Intersection of Race and Environmental Justice.”  This year's PPP series will occur in three parts:

1. Alumni will asynchronously engage with curated materials based on the 2024 theme (time commitment: 3.5 - 5 hours).
2. Alumni are invited to attend a Zoom conversation on Thursday, October 24, 2024, at 7:00 pm EST to debrief and connect with each other (time commitment: 90 minutes).
3. Alumni are invited to attend a panel discussion in February 2025 in which the panelists either have lived experience or are clinicians working with clients who align with the 2024 theme (time commitment: 90 minutes).

Below you will find a link to register. The materials for part 1 of the series will be emailed in September to allow participants enough time to engage with them before the Zoom session. Graduates who participated in PPP as students are encouraged to join. Please contact the Office of Alumni Relations with any questions.

Rebecca Willman is a 2023 graduate of the Doctor of Occupational Therapy Program. She is a new lab instructor for the Occupational Therapy in Mental Health course and recently won the OT Department's Alumni Professional Achievement Award for her work at the Home for Little Wanderers and McLean Hospital, where she has taken a role as the first dedicated occupational therapist treating patients at McLean’s Klarman Eating Disorders Center.

Earlier this year, Willman's research paper "The potential role of occupational therapy in the treatment of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder" was published. Her research on how occupational therapy could help patients with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) was the culmination of her year-long independent study with Dr. Jennifer Thomas, the co-director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. 

Strategic Communications intern Sophie Hauck spoke with Willman this summer about how occupational therapists can play a unique role in eating disorder treatment, and why treating ARFID could be a gateway for OTs to work with people with eating disorders.

Read on to learn more about Willman's work and her interest in supporting ARFID patients.

Child Development Day, aka "Baby Day," is just around the corner. You may remember this day from when you were a student! Now is your chance to have your child or children participate in this annual event, which is now virtual. If you have a child between the ages of 6 months and 3 yrs. 11 months and have time on the morning of October 18, 2024, please consider registering today for one of the 45-minute sessions.

Just as a refresher, Child Development Day is an annual opportunity for health professions students to learn about child development across domains as they conduct a developmental assessment through a telehealth platform. This will include speaking with caregivers, observing milestones, and learning how to analyze the information.

Lead by IHP faculty with expertise in pediatrics, interprofessional teams of students from PT, OT, Speech Pathology, Audiology, Genetic Counseling, Physician Assistant, and Nurse Practitioner programs will guide caregivers and children through a series of age-appropriate play activities that can be observed via Zoom, highlighting gross and fine motor skills, movement, social interaction, communication, and cognition.

Questions? Contact Rebecca Inzana.

Department of Occupational Therapy

A Slice of Learning

A monthly professional development series for OT practitioners

OT’s Role in Creating Disability- Inclusive

Interdisciplinary Conferences

with

Whitney McWherter Cranna, OT, OTD ’22

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

7:00 pm EDT ~ Virtual

These professional development webinars include a 30-minute lecture from our doctorally- trained faculty and/or alum. Certificates for 0.5 credit hours will be provided after attendance at each session. Click here to learn more about the topics planned through May 2025! While there, register for the entire series at one time. Only those who register will receive the Zoom link.