Keeping an Open Mind: OT Placements

Shir is in her second year of an MSc Occupational Therapy (Pre-Registration) course at Oxford Brookes University. From a very young age, Shir has always dreamed of studying occupational therapy. Her grandmother was among the first to graduate from occupational therapy in the country where she was born and watching the impact that she had on the lives of others was incredibly inspirational for Shir.

Shir completed her undergraduate honours degree in Canada, studying Kinesiology and Health Sciences, the study of human movement and health. Through this program, Shir learned the value of rehabilitation and evidence-based practice. Shir is so grateful to have acquired this indispensable knowledge and is eager to continue to learn to integrate this into her practice of occupational therapy.

As stated above, my name is Shir and I am a second-year MSc Occupational Therapy student studying at Oxford Brookes University. Whilst some of my previous blog posts have been very academic in nature, I thought I would share a bit of my personal experience with you this time around.

I first learned about the intricate work of occupational therapists before I learned to walk and talk. My grandmother was one of the first occupational therapists who trained back home, so occupational therapy was in everything I did, everyway I walked, and in the way that I learned to do things on my own. 

While I knew from an early age that occupational therapy was the career for me, it was not until a few years ago that I discovered my area of interest - paediatrics. I have always been drawn to working with children and have such a passion for helping them discover the world around them. I have volunteered and worked with children since I was 14 years old, and wake up every morning hoping for another opportunity to watch a young person grow and achieve their goals. 

So you can imagine that when I first discovered that my placement over the summer was in an older adult mental health team, I was unsettled, I was not sure what that would be like, and whether or not I would actually enjoy it. However, I decided to embrace the opportunity to take from it all that I could, after all everyone ages with time, and the children I hope to work with will one day become older adults themselves. 

However, I could not have been more mistaken, on my second placement I discovered another area of clinical interest…older adults. Their wisdom, their experiences, and their families, were surprisingly inspiring. I found that I was suddenly drawn to the lived experiences of older adults. These are people who had been through it all, and yet managed to make it through, and there was something so enchanting about that. 

I often reflect on my time working on placement with an older gentleman who had travelled the world for work, and on one of his travels abroad he had met the love of his life. He described her as the light in his life, the inspiration of his waking breath, and the person who made him feel complete. Yet, when he lost her a year ago, he stated that he felt as though he had lost a part of himself. He was overwhelmed with bereavement and feelings of isolation. His children lived far away, and after spending his life with his wife by his side, he felt as though there would never be a way for him to fill the hole she left. We spent time a couple of times a week talking on the phone and visited him at home as often as we could. And with time, he shared his incredible story with us. He told us about his groundbreaking career, his passion for creating and for the outdoors, and he slowly told us more about his wife and the life they shared. 

And what was most miraculous was that as he shared more and more stories with us, we could so clearly see him coming back to himself. He was finding things to do, ways to occupy his time. He rediscovered his love for cooking, which is something he used to do every day with his wife, and his love for cycling. 

Being a witness on his journey to a state of better mental health was inspiring, and taught me so much more about perseverance and love than I ever thought possible.

During our last phone call, when he felt that he no longer needed support, he paused and said: “Shir, life will be full of hardships and unexpected turns and bumps, but do not let it get you down. And mostly, don’t close any doors and always be open to new experiences”. 

I think about this token of wisdom he left me with, and while he endlessly thanked me for my time and patience, I felt that I should be the one thanking him. This man taught me a lesson I never knew I needed to learn, and most of all he taught me to not let my assumptions about my interests dictate my future.

As such, I hope to continue to embrace new experiences and opportunities, because while I thought working with older adults was not the journey for me, I was mistaken.

Through this, I hope to inspire you all to embrace the unexpected. Across the UK, many first-year students will be getting their first placement allocations in the coming weeks. Some people may get exactly what they dreamed of, but others may not. But I hope to encourage you all to embrace wherever you end up and be open to any opportunity that comes your way.

As Benjamin Disreali once said: “The secret of success is to be ready when your opportunity comes”