Reflections for Practicum EXS 310

Summer/Fall 2015

1. During your internship you will experience many different emotions. You
will be expected to work as a professional, but at times you may not feel
that way. Please comment on your first impressions of your internship.
What are your concerns, your excitements, and your questions? What do
you think will be the most important and challenging aspects of your
internship?

Personally, some of my first impressions for this internship are

feelings of excitement and anxiety. I am very much excited to see all of
the different interventions and treatments that she uses for each of the
students, and I am very excited to learn more about the business aspects
of Occupational Therapy, which relate to insurance paperwork and IEPs.
However, I am nervous about learning about how to deal with very
difficult students and their parents/loved ones.

Some questions that I have are related to planning and organizing

the treatments. I am very excited to learn about how Occupational
Therapists come up with individualized treatment plans for every person
who they work with. As well, I am very excited about how they organize
the session orders and how they still find time to organize the IEP
meetings.

Lastly, the most important aspect of the internship is to be

respectful and courteous to the Occupational Therapist. Truthfully, the OT
I am shadowing is doing me a huge favor by letting me observe her for
months. She really does not have to take on this, as she has other
obligations besides working at her job. With this in mind, it is very
important for me to give her the respect and kindness that she deserves.
As well, it is very important for me to be like a sponge and soak in as
much information and experience that I can while I am observing. As far
as challenges, I think my challenge will be feeling comfortable in
participating in some of the IEP meetings if my opinion is asked for.
Usually, I tend to be very quiet in-group gatherings, which will force me to
step out of my comfort zone.

2. There are many important characteristics of successful exercise science

professionals. Some include integrity, trustworthy, compassion, and more.
 Choose two characteristics that are important for you and describe an
experience that has made this connection more significant for you.

a. Personally, the two characteristics that are very important to me are

compassion and trustworthiness. Throughout my experiences at my
internship thus far, a time when I experienced a sense of
compassion was when the OT was working with a little girl with
severe Cerebral Palsy. Besides not being able to walk, the little girl
also had some cognitive delay and twitched a lot which could
possibly be a symptom of Parkinsons disease. As the OT was
working with her, I was able to notice how hard the little girl tried to
effectively communicate and perform the tasks that were asked of
her. That experience really taught me compassion, because I was
able to feel sympathetic to her situation.

Secondly, the experiences that have taught me about

trustworthiness were all when I observed the therapy team
meetings every Monday afternoon. In these meetings, the assistant
principal, special education teachers, physical therapist, speech
therapist, and occupational therapist all collaborate on the goals of
the week and about anything regarding the students that they need
to know. On many occasions, the assistant principal needed to
inform the teachers and therapists about what was going on with
students whose home lives were very concerning. Because of what
was being said, that information had to be kept confidential. Those
experiences really taught me about trustworthiness, because there
will most likely come a time when I need to keep information such
as these very confidential, in order to respect the student and those
who are above me.

3. Identify two or three major stresses that you have experienced since you
began your internship. Describe some of the methods that you have used
to cope with the stress. (Look over the job stress inventory in the course
assignments folder under lessons.)

a. The two things that stressed me were feeling overwhelmed by the

loudness from some of the kids and dealing with any of the kids
throwing up in the classroom. Even though these things happen
often at schools, I coped with the throw up by feeling sympathetic
towards the child, since they were not feeling very well. As far as
 the loudness, I tried to stay attentive towards what the OT was
working on with the student.

4. Balancing your internship responsibilities with the other responsibilities in

life can often be taxing. However, this balance is preparing you for the
real world. Please reflect on how you have managed your many roles as
an intern, student, family member, significant other, etc.

a. Personally, I do feel that I can improve my balance with these

responsibilities, but overall I do think that I have been doing well.
The reason is because I try my best to come up with a game plan
towards how I am going to get my school work done, after I go to
my internship and after I help my family with a couple of things.
Even though I may have to work late into the night on some things,
I make myself do that in order to get my schoolwork done.

5. Pick two or three words that describe how you are feeling about yourself
as an exercise science professional. Describe an experience or situation
that you think may have led you to feel this way. (Check out the Sport
Management competencies in the course assignment folder under
lessons.)

a. Two words that describe my feelings towards working as an exercise

science professional are excited and nervous. The experience when
I felt excited was seeing how one student improved his writing skill
from one day I observed to the next day I observed. Even though
some progress may take time, it makes all of the hard work worth it
when you see improvement and excitement in their eyes to learn.

Secondly, a time when I felt nervous about being an exercise

professional was when I attended one of the parent teacher
meetings. This was one of the few meetings that I have been to,
since I have been to some for my sister with autism, and it felt very
different viewing things from an OTs perspective. Overall, there is a
lot of information that needs to be documented in the IEPs and they
need to be completed prior to when the meetings are held. Even
though there is a lot of paperwork in the school setting, it is all very
worth it.
6. Identify a negative or disappointing experience that has occurred during
your internship. What was your reaction to this experience? Explain. (Look
at staff and /or client interactions; supervisor and staff interactions; client
and staff relationships.)

a. A disappointing experience that I had was finding out that one of

their students had recently passed away. Since this was during the
beginning of my internship, I did not get to meet the student, but it
was extremely heartbreaking to hear about how they died. My initial
reaction was feeling very shocked and felt very upset at the horrors
of what happened. Unfortunately, there is always the harsh reality
of losing someone who we are working with in this profession.

7. Describe a time in your internships when you felt that your values were
threatened. How did this make you feel? What did you do?

a. To be very honest, I really dont think that there were any times
when my values felt threatened. While interning at the Meadowood
program, I didnt have any hands on interactions with the students.
The reason was related to the fact that I am only an undergrad.
However, if my values did feel threatened at any time, I would
definitely have felt very uncomfortable with the situation. As far as
handling it, it would have to depend on the situation. If the situation
was related to religion, I would keep myself very quiet. But if the
situation had to deal with the way that an employee was treating a
child, I would have been more apt to say something.

8. Describe a time in your internship when you witnessed potentially

unethical behavior. What about the behavior was unethical? How did this
make you feel? What would you have done differently? (Find a code of
ethics for your future profession and list the web address)

a. To be very honest, there wasnt any time when I witnessed any

unethical behavior at my internship. The OT and other professionals
at the school all treated the students and patients in a way that
aligned with the code of ethics for their profession. Every day at my
internship, the OT treated every student fairly and was respectful
towards the wishes of the students, which are some of the many
 principles in the Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics (2015). The
source for the Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics is found from
the following website:
https://www.aota.org/~/media/Corporate/Files/Practice/Ethics/Code-
of-Ethics.pdf

b. However, if I did witness any unethical situations, I would have

definitely felt very uncomfortable. Even though I am only a student,
it is a very bad example for a health professional to display
unethical behaviors in front of an individual who is interested in
pursuing that field. That situation can cause the student to think
that making those kinds of decisions is alright, especially if they
highly respect that health professional. As well, unethical decisions
can cause harm to the patients, their families, and the reputation of
the facility. Every professional working anywhere should treat their
customers in a respectful and fair way, not only for the purpose of
bettering themselves professionally, but also for continuing a
positive reputation for the facility and other workers.

c. If I witnessed an unethical situation at my internship, I probably

would have been more apt to keep my concerns to myself, if the OT
was responsible. But if another professional was responsible for the
unethical situation, I would definitely have spoken with the OT
about how I felt.

9. Describe a time in your internship when you witness an incident of

conflict. How was the situation resolved? If you were the administrator,
how would you have handled the situation?

a. A time I witnessed an incident of conflict was on the last day of my

internship. What happened was one of the students was very non
compliant with going outside, because he wanted to stay indoors
and play with some of the toys. However, the teachers aid told him
that it was not time for playing at the moment. After the aid tried to
get him to go outside, the student caused a havoc scene and threw
the toys at the students and other professionals in the room. The
student also pushed a couple of kids down to the floor. As all of this
was going on, the OT was trying to work with one of the students.
Since all of this was going on, it was difficult for the OT and the
other student to concentrate. Normally, if that particular student
 was non compliant while he was working with the OT, she would
have handled it. But, since that particular student was doing other
activities that were not OT, she did not step in to resolve the issue.

b. To be honest, as far as handling the issue, I do feel that the

professionals handled it the right way. The teachers aids took the
student and had him calm down in another room. Overall, that
student has a very difficult time controlling his emotions, which is
something that the teachers and other therapists are working on
with him. Since he can easily be caught up in just playing, they
always try to keep him obeying a schedule, which allows him to
work on controlling his emotions in changing activities. If I was the
administrator, I feel that I would have wanted the teacher aids to
handle the situation what that they did. Instead of initially removing
him out of the room, I would have first seen if he could calm down
after a little while. But since he continued in the distressed state of
mind and decided to throw objects and push down other students, I
would have wanted them to take him from that room into another
room until he calmed down.

10. Most exercise science professions involve working in a team.

Describe how individuals at your facility work as a team to accomplish a
task or goal. What is your role in the process?

a. The individuals at my internship worked as a team through

collaboration. Overall, in some setting such as rehab centers, there
are therapists who will work together with a patient. However, since
my internship was at a school, the OTs and other health
professionals do not work together with a student at the same time.
Instead, they each have separate times. The ways that the OT and
other health professionals worked as a tem were through delegation
and collaboration. For example, if the OT and speech therapist
realized that each of them are scheduled to work with the same
child at the same time, they will delegate a different time when one
of them can work with a different student and that particular
student. As well, they also work together through collaborating with
each other in the break room and at staff meetings. In these
situations, they will converse about different ideas on how to help a
student with what they need to work on. The role that I had in the
team working process was basically to soak in the ideas that each
of them shared. Since I had no contact with the students, I observed
everything that the OTs did with the students. And, I soaked in the
 information that the OTs and other professionals were speaking
about.

11. Reflect on your time in the internship so far. What have you
learned? What seemed intimidating or unknown in the beginning, but now
is an everyday activity? How have you grown as a professional? Did the
negative or disappointing experience (from Question #6) change your
perspective on your internship? In what ways? Did any positive changes
occur (for you or one of your co-workers) from this negative or
disappointing experience? Explain.
a. As I reflect on my time at the internship, there were several things
that I learned. Some of the many things I learned were the
importance of being organized, being assertive, importance of
collaborating well with other professionals, and to really enjoy the
job. When it comes to organization, this is very important because
the OT had to deal with scheduling IEP meetings, evaluations, and
finding time to plan and see each of the kids on a weekly basis. For
assertiveness, this is very important because sometimes the only
way someone will listen is through assertiveness. Now granted, this
does not mean that the professional has to be mean, but they need
to be able to push their patient in a way for them to be motivated.
For collaborating well, this is important because it allows for the
input of others, which can lead to more effective treatment plans.
Lastly, enjoying the job is important because sometimes we may
not always like our job. For the OT who I shadowed, she admitted
that her least favorite part of the job is all of the paperwork.
However, when she works with the kids and sees the progress that
they are making, it brings to life the reason why she wanted to be
an OT. For this reason, it is important to really enjoy your job,
because it will make our least favorite areas seem miniscule.
b. The areas that I found intimidating were the IEP meetings.
Personally, I only attended a couple when I was little, because I
have a younger sister who has Autism. However, after attending
some more IEP meetings, I really feel like I have a greater grasp on
what they are like and how they run.
c. Hopefully, I would say I have grown professionally through having a
better understanding of OT and knowing how to work with patients.
Throughout my time at the internship, I always tried to ask myself
the purpose for why she was doing what she was doing, and to be
able to think about how she applied the Biomechanics and
Kinesiology principles into the therapy.
d. Honestly, the negative part of the internship did not change the
perspective of my internship. In reality, the death of a client or
patient is something that happens often. Even though it was really
sad to learn about the death of the student, it was a good learning
experience in being able to separate my life at work and at home.
Despite how hard it will be to have patients that pass away, I need
to learn how to draw a line between my life at work and at home. As
 well, I will have to learn how to continue on at work, despite how it
affects me emotionally.

12. Describe how being involved in an internship has influenced your

attitudes or behaviors toward yourself, your career aspirations, and/or
your relationships.

a. This internship has influenced my personal attitude by helping me

realize that I can work as an OT. Sometimes I doubt myself on what I
think I am able to do, and this experience made me realize that I
really can possibly work as an OT. As well, this experience has
enlightened the areas that I think I need to work on, such as
organization and assertiveness. But most importantly, it has
increased my certainty in knowing that I am choosing the field I am
most passionate for. By seeing the progress that those kids made
and seeing the gratefulness of their parents, it makes me feel more
excited to eventually be able to work with children and have an
impact in their lives. Personally, the OTs who have worked with me,
my younger sister, and my grandfather have really played a
positive impact in my familys life. I look forward to being able to
give back to this profession.