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The occupational therapy profession's indecisive step toward its Centennial Anniversary
The Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education released an unexpected set of decisions last week.In sum, the two decisions promote the concept of dual entry levels for OTA education and dual entry levels for OT education.  The OTA dual entry (associates and baccalaureate) is an entirely new concept while the OT dual entry (masters and doctoral) follows a year-long debate on whether or not the profession should adopt the doctoral level as a single point of entry.The reason why each of these decisions was surprising is because they contradicted the publicized opinions of the American Occupational Therapy A...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - August 17, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice Source Type: blogs

OTD 45 day comment period coming to a close next week
This post represents continuing analysis of the process to change the entry level educational requirements for practicing occupational therapy from the masters level to the doctoral level.  The analysis is offered as a public critique of the occupational therapy profession's methodology for enacting such a change.The 45 day comment period on a new rule that will authorize the conferral in New York State of the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy (O.T.D.) will come to a close at the end of next week.The American Occupational Therapy Association reports:In June 2015 AOTA staff also surveyed the 152 accredited mast...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - August 4, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice Source Type: blogs

Celebrating TEN YEARS of occupational therapy blogging!
Ten years ago I posted this first entry:Welcome! Hi everyone...This is the ABC Therapeutics weblog. We are occupational therapists in Western New York.More coming soon...+++Well it has been ten years! Sometimes the entries were patient stories.  Sometimes they were opinions on professional matters.  Sometimes they were analyses and criticisms of the systems we work in.  Sometimes the entries were pithy and academic and sometimes they were pedantic and boring. No matter what it all has been, I hope that I have been faithful to my mission of creating an ongoing experiment in a mostly open-source exploration ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - July 24, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: ABC Therapeutics Source Type: blogs

Open letter to the NYS Board of Regents on the OTD degree
The New York Department of State's Division of Administrative Rules (DAR) publishes the weekly State Register.  This document contains newly proposed amendments to state agency rules and provides interested parties an opportunity to comment on actions before an agency adopts each rule.The July 1, 2015 Register contains a new rule that will authorize the conferral in New York State of the degree of Doctor of Occupational Therapy (O.T.D.).  There is a 45 day comment period that will soon come to a close.The Register states that  The purpose of the proposed amendment is to authorize the conferral in New York S...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - July 21, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: competency OT Education OT practice Source Type: blogs

Occupational therapy and CPT coding
Different people are interested in the things that I do each day, and they are interested in them for different reasons.The people who come to me asking for help with a problem are interested in whether or not I will be able to summon the requisite knowledge to address their concern (Competency Test A).  They are also interested in whether or not I am a 'nice guy who cares' while engaging in that process (Competency Test B).  As an example, this morning a mom wanted my opinion on how to solve a problem with the positioning of her child's head and neck, because of being tilted over to one side.  I have seen h...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - July 7, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: competency OT practice Source Type: blogs

How NY State will enact the entry level OTD
Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.  (John Godfrey Saxe)The occupational therapy profession is considering a change to requiring a doctoral degree for entry level practice despite the overwhelming opposition to the concept by most practicing occupational therapists.  The current requirement for practice in NY State includes training at the Masters level.  Academic programs can't begin offering an entry level doctoral degree until they receive approval from the State.  Because the OTD is a new degree, Sections 3.47 and 3.50 of the Rules of the NY Boar...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - June 17, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT Education OT practice Source Type: blogs

Problems about the perception of 'advocacy' for parents in special education contexts
I went to an IEP meeting with a parent the other day and was greeted with hesitance by the occupational therapist on the educational team."Why are you here?" asked the therapist.  "Are you here because you are actually treating the child or are you here as an advocate?"Neither characterization seemed correct.  I paused and thought for a few seconds as I was not sure why it mattered.  I also was not sure if I was free to divulge the information.  I ran for the safest middle ground I could find and responded, "I know the child and I am helping the family."  Both were true.I know that the word "advoca...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - May 30, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Disability rights school-based practice Source Type: blogs

A critical juncture for the New York State Occupational Therapy Association
The New York State Occupational Therapy Association is planning to make significant changes to its bylaws and governance in the very near future.  Since so little information has been available on these changes I took the initiative to gather data so that occupational therapists in NY would have more information to assess these proposals.I will begin my analysis with an apology, because it is my longstanding belief that to be an appropriate critic one needs to be a member of the group that is being held to scrutiny.  For purposes of transparency I will divulge that I ceased my NYSOTA membership approximately ten ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - May 14, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice policy Source Type: blogs

Social justice in occupational therapy: Where to from here?
After a multi-year debate there was some small capitulation regarding the social justice language in the AOTA Code of Ethics.  The previous section labeled 'Principle 4: Social Justice' was removed and replaced with a more generic section on 'Justice' that focuses on procedural aspects of the Justice construct.  A passing reference to a social justice construct was included in the Preamble.It is difficult to know if it is even fair to say 'capitulation' because we have not had precise commentary from the Ethics Commission on those changes.  What we have are the comments of the EC Chair Dr. Lea Brandt who sta...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - May 8, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs

When it becomes more important to state 'why' you do something
If you ask 100 occupational therapists what they do you will get 100 different answers, because the nature of the profession is to help people do the things that are important to them.  Every patient has their own priorities, and that makes all the stories different.Instead of focusing on the 'what' I like to focus on the 'why.'  When I need to be reminded 'why' I do what I do I like to drag this story out. I knew a young family and they were unable to conceive.  After spending many thousands of dollars they made some arrangement with a young teenage mom so that they could adopt her baby (just about to be bo...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - April 23, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs

On persevering in leadership and its relevance to free speech
An interesting quote was attributed today to Amy Lamb, the President-Elect of the American Occupational Therapy Association.  Here is the quote as it appeared on Twitter:I initially consider that the timing of such a statement that "No means not now" could possibly be related to the recent decision by the US Senate to refuse to support the Cardin-Vitter amendment that would repeal the Medicare outpatient therapy cap.  Therapy leaders have been trying for many years to get the cap repealed and it was a stinging defeat.I asked for additional context and clarity about the quote and was informed that it was gener...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - April 16, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: policy Source Type: blogs

Continued evidence of confusing Christian charity with Social Justice
In the Open Journal of Occupational Therapy this month there is an opinion paper written by Barbara Hemphill entitled Social Justice as a Moral Imperative.  The position presented is that Social Justice belongs in the AOTA Code of Ethics, that it is embedded in the tradition of the OT profession, and that it is not a political matter.There continues to be confusion and conflation between the concepts of Christian charity and Social Justice.  The author states that Social Justice is not political, but this is refuted by literature review.  The originators of this movement in the OT profession have overtly ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - April 3, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs

On 3D printing technologies and The Nature of Gothic
We want one man to be always thinking, and another to be always working, and we call one a gentleman, and the other an operative; whereas the workman ought often to be thinking, and the thinker often to be working, and both should be gentlemen, in the best sense. As it is, we make both ungentle, the one envying, the other despising, his brother; and the mass of society is made up of morbid thinkers and miserable workers. Now it is only by labour that thought can be made healthy, and only by thought that labour can be made happy, and the two cannot be separated with impunity. - John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice.3D prin...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 18, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice philosophy Source Type: blogs

Occupational therapy and case management
There is an RA Motion for consideration that charges the RA Speaker to appoint an ad hoc committee beginning the summer of 2015 to delineate the role in case management for occupational therapy in primary care and mental health.The link to the full motion is available here: http://www.aota.org/-/media/Corporate/Files/AboutAOTA/Governance/RA/2015-Spring/3CaseManagement.pdfThe rationale for the motion states that "The practice of occupational therapists (OTs) allows for the role of case managers, however, the profession recognizes the need for OTs to better define their role in the new model of care which is primar...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 17, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: OT practice Source Type: blogs

Daylight savings time and temporal contexts and stuff
Sometimes concepts all just pile on at once.This morning I was putting together some lecture material for a class where I will be discussing contextual factors and why they are important to occupational therapists.  Ironic.Contextual factors are defined as interrelated conditions that are within and surrounding the person.  We generally break them down into personal, cultural, virtual, and temporal categories. The reason why it is ironic is because someone told me today that it is my Dad's anniversary.  Not really.  It is the anniversary of his death - five years ago now.  I never consider that it ...
Source: ABC Therapeutics Occupational Therapy Weblog - March 7, 2015 Category: Occupational Health Tags: Too much information Source Type: blogs