Newbie OT here, hi!
This is an open diary for anyone really involved in occupational therapy. It could be a call for help or really just to vent anonymously.
This field is both rewarding and overwhelming. Every day is never really the same, both for the good and bad, and it really pushes me to go out of my comfort zone and improve as a person.
I’m someone who really values growth, but because of how wide our scope is (and how wide I chose to make my career), I do get easily overwhelmed. I’m still working on efficient regulation and currently surviving off caffeine AHAHA. I’m also in my first year of self funding, so I’m still figuring out the balance between work, play, and home mgmnt
I’m still a young practitioner and really just want to provide the best I can for my clients, but I’m scared of burnout as a struggling perfectionist. As much as I want to become “better,” there’s no clear checklist for becoming a “good” OT, and no one is really supervising every aspect of our work. Sometimes I genuinely don’t know when I’m doing badly or when something is already “good enough.”
I was hoping to get some wisdom/advice from more experienced OTs. Especially things you wish you knew or did when you were starting out.
For context, I’m 6 months into practice and currently working in ff:
- A pediatric clinic, mostly with ASD/ADHD
- Another setting where I see geriatric clients with dementia/stroke, children with CP/GDD, as well as adolescents with social difficulties or executive dysfunction
It’s quite a wide scope, but I originally wanted to experience different areas and figure out where I genuinely flourish before I zero in on a smaller population, hoping to make use of natural skills and optimize.
I’m fortunate to have great mentors at work. I ask them questions whenever I can and I love their insight, but I do wonder how other OTs outside our clinic might approach a similar case.
I noticed I really struggle with knowing what to actually do with what I observe, especially in early intervention with developing joint attn pa. I know a lot of that comes with clinical reasoning, flexibility, and TUS, which are all things I’m still trying to build. I just don’t really know where to start.
It does get easier with time, and I’m still learning from the clinicians I work with and how they seem to do these things so automatically. I try not to let the imposter syndrome get the best of me, but I’ve also heard that maybe it never completely goes away as long as you’re still learning.
Thank you for reading the thoughtss! im looking forward to reading this again , who knows what set of goals ill have in a year mark ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ hehe