How I Became an Occupational Therapist

As with most things in life, my journey to become an Occupational Therapist wasn’t a straight road. In fact, it was quite the opposite. But isn’t that what makes the journey more interesting?

(Free to use image from Pixabay.com)

For as long as I can remember, I’ve known that my goal in life is to help people. It’s always been the one thing that has stayed constant throughout the years. Initially, that drive to help people took form as a desire to be a doctor, and I went all out. I had the fake doctor sets growing up with the plastic stethoscope and injections. I’m sure some people reading this can relate. And from as young as eight-years-old, I found myself paying a lot of attention any time I had to go to the hospital because I knew that was where doctors worked. I would ask hundreds of random questions, and to my glee, the doctors I happened to meet were all too happy to answer them.

This curiosity and focus endured well into my teens, and it paid off when I got a chance to intern at our family hospital for the first time at thirteen. I was there for just a month, but it felt so much longer. It was during this internship that I began to understand the inner workings of a hospital.

I spent a few days in each of the main departments in the hospital; administration and records, the laboratory, the pharmacy, paediatrics, dermatology, gynaecology, accident and emergency, cleaning and hospitality, and surgery. The staff that I worked with were warm and welcoming, and they made an effort to teach me as much as I could absorb at that age. I summarised all the information into a PowerPoint presentation that I delivered to the senior faculty members at the end of my placement, including my general supervisor.

The presentation went well, even though I was absolutely terrified, and what thirteen-year-old wouldn’t be? All I could think about was the fact that I was thirteen and presenting this information to people who had been working for longer than I’d been alive. What could I possibly tell them that they didn’t already know?

But the feedback I received after the presentation taught me a valuable lesson. It wasn’t about giving my assessors new information or even putting together a presentation to their standards. It was about communicating what I had learnt, and that was it. I didn’t need to impress them by sharing new information; I only needed to show them that the time I had spent with them had resulted in me learning things I had never known and growing from the experience.

This trend continued the next year when I spent six to eight weeks working at a hospital in a different state (my family moved a lot while I was growing up). This time, I shadowed the general consultants in the hospital. I took note of the questions they would ask during interviews and how the patient’s responses led to a hypothesis about the presenting condition, which would then be confirmed or denied using the variety of available tests. I can’t say it was the most rousing process, because there were a lot of medical terms that went over my head, but it did teach me that there is a process to coming to a diagnosis. To get an accurate conclusion, you need to understand first by observing and listening, and then test that understanding to get a reliable verdict.

During that internship, I also spent time following the doctors and nurses on ward rounds, which exposed me to the work that goes into maintaining patients on admission. Up until that point, whenever I’d been sick previously, I figured the doctors and nurses who came to check in on me were just being nice and didn’t want me to be lonely all day. I learnt then that I was only half right; they were all nice anyway, but it was their responsibility to monitor each patient’s progress.

It was also during this internship that had the opportunity to be in the theatre for a cesarean section, and I’m glad I did. I had never been present for any kind of operation until then, and the experience was pivotal for me. Growing up, I had (and still do) always hated needles, to the point that I fainted once during a routine immunisation when I was five or six. However, I had never exactly had a problem with blood. Well, at least that’s what I thought because I was always comfortable helping my siblings or friends dress their minor wounds.

During the procedure, I figured everything was going well because I wasn’t getting faint or nauseous like I’d heard people do around blood. But my confidence quickly evaporated when I found that I had lost all conscious fine motor control in my hands. To put that in context, if you had asked me to hold anything right at that moment, I’d most likely have dropped it. All I could do was interlace my fingers behind my back and watch. And thankfully, that’s all I had to do.

It was at this point that I realised on a subconscious level that being a doctor might not be the best career path for me because surgery was part of the package and losing motor control when someone’s life is in your hands probably isn’t the best idea. However, I refer to it as a subconscious realisation, because I was still dead set on being a doctor for the next two years.

I continued looking for opportunities to work with doctors, which eventually led me to work with the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Nigeria when I was seventeen. I had the privilege of working in the HIV/AIDS department which taught me so much about the virus and the people who live with it, and it’s an experience I will always be grateful for.

It was after all of this, in my first year of A-levels, that I finally sat down to really consider if I wanted to continue on the doctor track. It had been my drive for almost ten years at this point, and if I wasn’t going to be a doctor, what other options did I have? I looked into nursing, where my fear of needles quickly dissuaded me. Then I looked into physiotherapy, massage therapy, aromatherapy, psychology, creative writing, English literature and a bunch of other options that mirrored my interests.

And for those of you confused by the last two since they are so far from the healthcare track, that’s my fault. What I have neglected to mention up until now is that art, writing, and a litany of other creative activities have always been an essential part of my life. I have always loved to read, write, sing, dance, act, draw, and so much more, but only in my spare time since I was so focused on becoming a doctor. So this was the first time that I allowed myself to consider any other options.

After a lot of research and soul searching, I finally decided that if I was doing anything other than studying medicine, it had to be a profession that merged my love of the arts, with my passion for healthcare; and that’s when I stumbled onto Occupational Therapy. It was the first time I had heard about it, and even if I didn’t quite get the nuances of it at the time, I knew it felt right. It was the perfect blend of both of my affinities, and it allowed me to focus on using the activities that people find meaningful, much like my own art and writing, as a vehicle for effecting positive change in their lives. And the best part was that it was a healthcare profession, what more could I ask for? I discussed the decision with my dad, and the rest is history.

So that’s the story of how I became an Occupational Therapist. And since finishing my degree in 2017, I’ve gone on to learn so much more about the profession and the impact it has on peoples lives. So much so that it has inspired me to pursue a masters and PhD in the near future. So check back in a couple of years, and I might just be a ‘doctor’, just not the kind I imagined all those years ago.

Thank you for joining me on this trip down memory lane, and if you enjoyed it, I’d really appreciate a clap. If you’d like to read more of my writing, don’t forget to hit that follow button, I put up posts every Monday.

Also, if you would like a more in-depth explanation of what Occupational Therapy is, you can have a look at my last blog post.

Bye for now! And I hope you have a fabulous week ahead wherever you are in the world.