ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog

During the very long social justice debate that preceded the revised AOTA Code of Ethics there were repeated claims that social justice represented a Core Value of the occupational therapy profession.  Those claims have been thoroughly addressed here  and here .  In these entries and several other previous entries information was presented to support the claim that American influences are germane to understanding the driving forces behind the formation of the profession. In my ongoing readings related to this topic I was comparing textbooks and am developing some new questions.  I am very curious about information that was recently edited out of the new edition of the Occupational Perspective of Health, 3rd ed (Wilcock and Hocking, 2015). In An Occupational Perspective of Health, 2nd ed., Wilcock (2006) discusses the driving forces leading up to the formation of the occupational therapy profession.  She explains that changes occurred as Ruskin and Morris' id...

I want to share a message about authenticity in therapeutic relationships. Jim was a 40 year old man who participated in  a day treatment program in a rural community.  The program itself was conceived and nurtured by Jim's parents along with other parents who were desperately trying to find non-institutional program options for their children.  Jim had cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability.  He attended that community program as a school child and eventually 'graduated' into the adult day treatment program.  The program grew from providing services to just a few children to several hundred people with developmental disabilities of all ages.  The program was an act of love, gifted by parents to their children.  That is the best way I can think to describe programs that developed this way. I am not sure how aware Jim was of all that.  He was mostly focused on relationships with people and he had no disability in that social arena. ...

*This represents MY Summary and opinions on this report: As part of the process of gathering data to inform decision making regarding the entry level degree required for occupational therapy practice, the Accreditation Council on Occupational Therapy Education conducted a survey . In summarizing these statistics, categories of respondents were combined to simplify analysis.  Also, in summarizing agreement or disagreement, categories of 'strongly agree' and 'agree' were combined as were 'strongly disagree' and 'disagree.' That survey was open between March 13, 2015 and closed May 15, 2015.  There were 2,829 respondents.  The generalized categories of respondents were OT practitioners (50%), OT students (19%), OT academicians (29%),and employers (3%). The overwhelming majority of respondents (71%) agreed that the OT profession should embrace a single entry level.  This opinion was similar across all categories of respondents. When asked if the bo...

A little over a year ago I presented an argument that the Emmanuel Movement provided important core values for the occupational therapy profession .  This argument was constructed in context of a debate on whether or not Social Justice was a historical value of the profession. I was curious as to why we neglected to include the Emmanuel Movement when we discussed our values and beliefs.  In the beginnings of the 20th century the Emmanuel Movement was based on the notion that a new method was required to address the social problems of disability and illness.  That new method was a philosophy regarding responsibility and self reliance - and surrounded by Christian values of charity. Furthermore, that method was most certainly not based on a governmental model of redistribution or in a new age construct of oppression and liberation.  That fact is what made some of the recent social justice debates so curious. Shannon (1977) warned that "a discipline that forgets...

I teach ethical decision making to occupational therapy students.  One of the most common concerns that I hear from students each year is the pressure that they experience regarding productivity and 'meeting minutes requirements' in skilled nursing facilities.  Nursing homes receive higher rates of reimbursement based on intensity of rehab services that are provided, so there is an incentive for facilities to provide as much 'high intensity' therapy as possible. Typically, the students express ethical distress because they often believe that the recipients of these services are receiving marginal or no benefit from their participation. As a population, OT students feel disempowered about expressing concerns in this area during their fieldwork experiences because a) they perceive that they are 'just students' and don't want to make waves b) they feel confused because their clinical preceptors are all engaging in the behavior c) they have compet...

The Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education released an unexpected set of decisions last week. In sum, the two decisions promote the concept of dual entry levels for OTA education and dual entry levels for OT education.  The OTA dual entry (associates and baccalaureate) is an entirely new concept while the OT dual entry (masters and doctoral) follows a year-long debate on whether or not the profession should adopt the doctoral level as a single point of entry. The reason why each of these decisions was surprising is because they contradicted the publicized opinions of the American Occupational Therapy Association, the member group for the profession. As such the 'problem' with the decisions doesn't rest with ACOTE alone, but rather represents a community of professionals that are at odds with themselves and unsure of how to move toward the future. +++ Regarding OTA education, an Ad Hoc Committee of AOTA looked at the complex issues surrounding O...

This post represents continuing analysis of the process to change the entry level educational requirements for practicing occupational therapy from the masters level to the doctoral level.  The analysis is offered as a public critique of the occupational therapy profession's methodology for enacting such a change. The 45 day comment period on a new rule that will authorize the conferral in New York State of the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy (O.T.D.) will come to a close at the end of next week. The American Occupational Therapy Association reports : In June 2015 AOTA staff also surveyed the 152 accredited master’s-degree-level programs, with 131 (86%) responding to the survey. Of the 131 programs that responded, 106 (81%) indicated that they had started working on a transition to the doctorate and planned to have this completed within 10 years (86 within 5 years).  As I stated recently , "In my opinion the American Occupational Therapy Association Board o...

Ten years ago I posted this first entry: Welcome! Hi everyone... This is the ABC Therapeutics weblog. We are occupational therapists in Western New York. More coming soon... +++ Well it has been ten years! Sometimes the entries were patient stories.  Sometimes they were opinions on professional matters.  Sometimes they were analyses and criticisms of the systems we work in.  Sometimes the entries were pithy and academic and sometimes they were pedantic and boring. No matter what it all has been, I hope that I have been faithful to my mission of creating an ongoing experiment in a mostly open-source exploration of occupational therapy.  No ads.  No bias other than 'just me - '  straight shooting commentary from the hip of a street level practitioner.  Sometimes that resonated and sometimes it created enmity - but it is all dialogue and that is something that we all need a lot more of. No matter what, it seems appropriate to take the ...

The New York Department of State's Division of Administrative Rules (DAR) publishes the weekly State Register.  This document contains newly proposed amendments to state agency rules and provides interested parties an opportunity to comment on actions before an agency adopts each rule. The July 1, 2015 Register contains a new rule that will authorize the conferral in New York State of the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy (O.T.D.).  There is a 45 day comment period that will soon come to a close. The Register states that  The purpose of the proposed amendment is to authorize the conferral in New York State of the degree, Doctor of Occupational Therapy (O.T.D.). The proposed amendment arose from a request to confer this degree by one of the institutions of higher education in New York.  The O.T.D. degree is recognized by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE) and is an authorized degree in 26 states, which include Californ...

Different people are interested in the things that I do each day, and they are interested in them for different reasons. The people who come to me asking for help with a problem are interested in whether or not I will be able to summon the requisite knowledge to address their concern (Competency Test A).  They are also interested in whether or not I am a 'nice guy who cares' while engaging in that process (Competency Test B).  As an example, this morning a mom wanted my opinion on how to solve a problem with the positioning of her child's head and neck, because of being tilted over to one side.  I have seen hundreds of cases of torticollis, but none of them are "routine" to me.  Every one of them is treated with as much seriousness and concern and diligence that I can muster. If I treated them as 'routine' then I probably wouldn't take the time to meet the parent's Competency Test B (the 'nice guy who cares' test).  Fortunately I was...

Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.   (John Godfrey Saxe) The occupational therapy profession is considering a change to requiring a doctoral degree for entry level practice despite the overwhelming opposition to the concept by most practicing occupational therapists.  The current requirement for practice in NY State includes training at the Masters level.  Academic programs can't begin offering an entry level doctoral degree until they receive approval from the State.  Because the OTD is a new degree, Sections 3.47 and 3.50 of the Rules of the NY Board of Regents related to Title VIII of the Education Law that lists approved degrees will need to be amended. There is a lot of confusion and misinformation about this process.  This blog post attempts to explain what is happening at both the surface level as well as 'behind the scenes.'  The purpose of discussing the process is educational and repres...