Occupational Therapy News OTnews October 2019 | Page 50

FEATURE SOCIAL MEDIA
A place to
talk all things
occupational
therapy
Carolina Cordero reflects on her time as a
student intern with the OTalk team, and how the
skills she has learned will stand her well in her
future career
T
he weekly Twitter chat about occupational therapy –
OTalk – runs every Tuesday night at 8pm. Founded in
2011 by a group of occupational therapists, the OTalk
team has changed over the years and the current team
includes three members that were recruited via a student internship.
The aim is to give an occupational therapy student an
opportunity to develop skills in networking, using Twitter as a
continuing professional development (CPD) tool, and also working
within a team.
OTalk’s current intern Carolina Cordero recently graduated
from the University of Limerick and has moved to London to start
her career, alongside becoming a full-time member of the OTalk
team.
She reflects on her time as the group’s student intern: ‘For me,
occupational therapy and Twitter will always be linked. My very first
tweets, on my current Twitter profile, saw me announcing that I had
been accepted onto an occupational therapy course, and giving a
“shout-out” to the Twitter accounts that had helped me learn about
the profession up to that point.’
Carolina says that the ‘is not sure’ what had led her towards
using Twitter in the first place, but that she ‘had quickly realised that,
of all the social media platforms I was familiar with, it seemed to be
the one with the strongest network of healthcare professionals and
the most welcoming exchange of ideas’.
When she subsequently saw the opportunity to become the
#OTalk student digital leader intern, she ‘jumped at the chance to
get involved’.
‘Being an OTalk intern has had many benefits,’ she goes on,
‘some that I expected, and some that have taken me by surprise’.
50 OTnews October 2019
When she applied for the position, she says that she knew that
she would be gaining something that she could put on her CV, that
might also improve her social media communication skills, and that,
by helping to facilitate the chats, would give her the chance to pick
up valuable insights from participants.
‘I didn’t predict how much it would make me feel like a part of a
team, how it would help me build my research skills through helping
with an #OTalk research project, or how it has helped me build