FEATURE CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Combining clinical practice
and teaching –
the benefits of two jobs
There are many career opportunities for occupational therapists,
including clinical practice and education. Here, Sarah Reynolds
discusses the benefits of working across both
Currently I work at the University of Plymouth,
but until recently I also worked as a clinical
occupational therapist, latterly in a social
care setting. These two separate jobs came
about after I completed a part-time MSc in Advanced
Professional Practice (Occupational Therapy) at the
university, while working, which sparked an interest in
teaching occupational therapy.
Fortuitously, a temporary lecturer/practitioner post at
the University of Plymouth came up while I was doing
the MSc. This opportunity gave me a taste of teaching
without needing to leave practice. Subsequently I have
worked in both areas for over three years.
There is some literature that considers the
benefits of bridging academia and practice
within occupational therapy. For example,
a study (Bartley and McKenna 2013)
critically reflected on the role of
lecturer practitioner and found that
university students appreciated
the clinical expertise and
realistic understanding
of current practice
that the lecturer/
practitioner
brought.
They also reflected, however, that workload pressures
impacted on other therapists’ clinical understanding of
how the two aspects of the job should link.
Bartley and McKenna (2013) were reflecting on one
job that combined both academic and clinical aspects,
rather than my situation where I had two separate jobs,
with no expectation that either of my job roles should
impact on each other.
My experience certainly reflected the findings from
Bartley and McKenna (2013), that there have been
definite positives to doing both jobs at the same
time. From my perspective, I believe that both clinical
colleagues and service users benefited, as have the
students.
Manual handling is one example. I can
give real life case examples when teaching
manual handling, which is helpful
for students. Moreover, through
the university, I have received
additional manual handling
training, which I applied to
my clinical practice to
benefit service users.
My interest in
manual handling
also led to
56 OTnews August 2020