School or hospital?
Occupational therapists work in both settings and sophomore Hannah Brown wanted to try out each. So she conducted her first Field Period in her hometown (Dundee) school district and her second—this past January—at Geneva GeneralHospital.
She favors the hospital setting.
“I worked in acute care and it was new and different, and fast-paced every day,” said Brown. “When I did my Field Period at the school, I spent the whole month with the same kids.”
Brown assisted an occupational therapist in doing exercises with patients using a variety of equipment.
“I enjoyed being able to interact with the patients,” said Brown. “One doesn’t often have an opportunity to do that as a sophomore.”
She also got to “see a lot of things in practice” that she learned in the classroom—namely, daily living exercises.
“The patients were trying to get back to doing things for themselves as well as activities they enjoyed and that made them happy before they were discharged,” said Brown, who also spent some time with counselors and nurses in the detoxification unit. “I was interested in learning more about addiction as a disease.”
-- Tanya Cornell-Kestler
