Hello All: The other day, a therapist was talking with me about explaining OT to a PT colleague. The OT explained to me that she was able to help the PT understand OT by talking about fine motor coordination. According to the OT, the PT seemed to really understand and agreed that she (i.e. the PT) would never try to teach a client how to button a shirt.
This example presents a compelling dilemma for myself. While it's certainly accurate to say OT helps client's with fine motor deficits, I feel that explaining our unique contribution in this manner serves to really paint us into a corner. It seems that in trying to break our skills down into 'understandable chunks' we often severely limit our professional contribution to health care. Additionally, in my professional experience, OT's are generally NOT trained as upper extremity experts (at least right out of school) and are often NOT recognized by our PT colleagues as orthopedic experts in upper extremity, much less anything else. However, I guess some PTs might give OT credit for having more expertise in fine motor training. The issue of fine motor training leads back to the original paragraph and a couple of questions. In all of our professional literature and documents, OT is recognized NOT as orthopedic experts but as occupational experts. If this is true, why do therapists sometimes explain OT as being UE experts? Are we saying one thing and practicing another? How is it that we can convey this expertise to our colleagues and even amongst ourselves? Thanks for reading and hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. Indeed, we do have much for which to be thankful! Ron *********��*********** Unsubscribe? Send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the message's *body*, put the following text: unsubscribe OTlist List messages are archived at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] *********��***********
