Occupational Therapy

Carolyn Unsworth’s visit to Singapore for Health Manpower Development Programme (HMDP) is very beneficial. I have attended about 4 lectures and 2 workshops so far since Monday. Some of her lectures are pretty much of a revision for me. For example, clinical reasoning, psychometric propeties of cognitive and perceptual assessment tools, and driving rehabilitation. These repetitions can only translate to the importance or growth of the area. Besides, it is the perspective of an overseas lecturer and expert that I find useful and interesting to note. For instance the culture of using standardised assessment tools in almost each client is noted in Australian Occupational Therapists. Another example will be the different legislation in driving rehabilitation than that of Singapore’s.

I am proud to annouce that I am learning and trying out an assessment tool, Australian Therapy Outcome Measures (AusTOMs) developed by Carolyn and her team. Since the tool provide a global snapshot of my clients’ impairments, activity limitations, participation restriction and stress/distress, it can serve as a useful guide to keep a lookout on how my service has impacted my client as a whole. As pointed out by Carolyn, it would be interesting if data from all clients are gathered and used to reflect on the service provided by the occupational therapy department.

I have also learnt on various approaches in cognitive-perceptual rehabilitation, as well as some evidence-based intervention strategies for these clients. Hence, it will be used to get several ideas for the cases I am managing. On a side note, I am currently managing clients with cognitive-perceptual issues. I must say that it is indeed very challenging. It is not easy to pinpoint the exact reason of impairment. Further assessment would be needed to rule out several hypotheses. But I’m afraid that by the time I knew the exact reason, my clients will be discharged or transferred to another ward.

Moving on to the learning points I gathered from this short clinical week, I am currently managing 2 cases per day. As the clients are discharged or transferred out within days or eveb hours, half of my interventions that I have planned had not been carried out. Nevertheless, it is the process of thoughts that matters.

My supervisor’s feedback for this week was that my assessments and thought processes are still quite “flighty”. It’s still not organised. She is so nice to give me tips on how to go about improving it. I will do my best to improve so as not to disappoint her and more importantly, myself.

Personal reflections would be that I agree with her comments. I also noticed that I am still scared to make mistakes. And I am sleep-deprived. I promise to sleep by 11.30pm daily next week. Hafizah and I had also lamented on whether we will be a competent OT after graduation, which will be in 2 months’ time. We seemed not being able to synthesise theories learnt well enough to be efficient and competent. Nevertheless, we will hope to learnt as much from this clinicals as there would be no more thereafter.