Katie Estey, OTR/L
Reflections on Practice
My name is Katie Estey and I am a recent graduate
of Elmhurst College’s MOT Program. I recently
completed one of my Fieldwork level II placements in
an outpatient hand therapy setting. As I begin to reflect
on that Fieldwork experience, and the vast amount
of information I learned in what felt like a quick 12-
week rotation, my mind continues to drift back to one
specific client.
The client I am referring to is a 12-year girl who was
seeking occupational therapy (OT) services due to a wrist
injury she sustained at gymnastics practice. As soon as
I began her initial evaluation I instantly felt connected
to her. She was a highly competitive gymnast whose life
appeared to revolve around this sport. Similarly, my life
growing up also revolved around a sport, only my sport
was basketball. Nonetheless, I felt connected because I
could see how much she was sacrificing to pursue this
dream of hers, and I felt I had a responsibility to get her
back to competing as soon as possible.
I quickly jumped in to giving her a handful of
exercises to complete while at home, in hopes that we
could speed up her recovery time. Given the client’s
age and her competitive nature, I assumed that she
would return to therapy and we would immediately see
significant gains in her wrist
motion. However, this was
not the case. Session after
session she would return to
therapy and show little to no
improvement. One session
I recall looking across the
table as I was instructing
her to complete an exercise;
she looked disinterested
and unmotivated - it broke
my heart! I was becoming
frustrated and knew something needed to change.
I started to doubt myself as a therapist, and my
ability to connect with clients. At the time I was treating
4 to 5 clients with similar wrist injuries and having
tremendous success; what was I missing?
As I was taught throughout my graduate studies, it
is imperative to engage in self-reflection. I remembered
the research project I had completed with 5 other
students in my cohort. We conducted a pilot study
that was focused on gathering the traits caregivers and
clients value in a healthcare practitioner in order to
produce positive therapy outcomes. After analyzing
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