For one, it was living with an autoimmune disease. For one, it was watching her brother with autism, unable to tie his shoes. For one, it was growing up with a learning disability. And for another, it was her friend with multiple amputations. They all have different stories that pushed them to pursue a career in occupational therapy.

April is Occupational Therapy Month, a month meant to raise awareness and celebrate the benefits of OT. For first-year students in the occupational therapy graduate program, helping people through OT has become a part of their daily life. 

“Occupational therapy is a type of therapy that really focuses on getting back, or helping people get back, to things that bring them meaning and purpose,” said Reagan Gary, graduate student from Anson. “We really focus on occupation-based intervention, so things like helping them do self-care again, community management and being able to drive again.” 

Since OT work is in a wide variety of settings and populations, M.C. Gunn, graduate student from Waco, said it can be difficult to define.

“Occupational therapists literally can work with people from like birth, like in the NICU, all the way to end of life care in hospice, and basically everything in between all of that,” Gunn said. “We kind of have a hard time defining it because depending on the setting and population you’re with, one OT’s day-to-day job could look completely different from others.”

One of the most common misconceptions about the word “occupation” in OT is that it means job, Brianna Steele, graduate student from May, said. 

“Occupation is anything that gives your life meaning, your purpose, or that takes up your time,” Steele said. “Nobody thinks washing your hair is an occupation, but it is, especially for someone who’s had an accident. Until you’re in that position, you don’t know anything about it, but we just want to get the word out there, because, I mean, it’s our job. We’re advocating for ourselves, but then also advocating for our patients.”

Gunn agreed and said she has an autoimmune disease, but OT was never offered as an option for her. After learning more about it, she chose to pursue the career after she saw its impact.

“It’s something that I really think that I could have benefited from,” Gunn said. “That’s just deepened my love for our profession and for pushing out what OT is, and kind of advocating that all types of people, whether they look like they need it or not, can really benefit from occupational therapy.”

Clay Ray, graduate student from Pampa, said he worked with an OT after he was diagnosed with a learning disability. 

“For about a year and a half, two years, my occupational therapist worked with me one day a week for two years, and it really stuck with me because I know this profession works,” Ray said. “I know from experience. And I tell people all the time, like, if it wasn’t for her, I’m not here, I’m not in college. I’m not in grad school.”

Graduate students in the Occupational Therapy program present on their 3d prosthetic hand project. (Photo courtesy of MC Gunn)

Through the university’s program, students take classes for about a year and a half. Then, they go into clinical field rotations. After rotations, Master’s students can sit for their board exam to become a registered, licensed occupational therapist, and Doctoral students can come back and complete a capstone research-based project before they can sit for their board exam.

They also have the opportunity to create prosthetic hands and other projects as well as spend a day using a wheelchair to travel around campus. 

“We’re learning about all kinds of adaptive equipment, seating and mobility,” Gunn said. “Universal design is a really big aspect. We even get down to visual adaptations, like hearing aids, hearing adaptations, and kind of different things in the lecture, and then the lab is where we go to the maker lab at ACU, and we actually make and design our own adaptive equipment.”

For some projects, the students are assigned a population, and they get to choose what they want to make. Steele recently made a coffee pot for the older population.

“You could always say, well, there’s Keurig, but that’s not what’s meaningful to them, and that’s not what they want to do,” Steele said. “Once you’re that old, you’ve done it so many times, it’s like muscle memory. And so basically, we made a wooden base and that you could slide into the coffee pot and put the coffee pot on it, and then strap it in and pull it out, and then it has a base that’s swinging, and you can pour it. So it doesn’t take a lot of arm strength.”

Each student said the projects help them grow and learn to think more critically because they have to apply information to make decisions about how to help each individual. 

“It’s just a deep level of critical thinking and clinical reasoning,” Gunn said, “and a lot of the time there’s not really a right or a wrong answer. That’s been kind of a big challenge for all of us to get out of that mindset of like, well, ‘I want to be right.’ It’s not always right, and you just have to do, what’s best for your patient and what’s best in that moment.”

Gunn said that through the challenges, she has become more empathetic toward others.“Some of the stuff we’re learning and the stuff that we see is honestly kind of hard and can be really sad sometimes,” Gunn said, “But that’s the beauty of our profession, is we can take that compassion and that empathy, and we can bring meaning into people’s lives and help them regain independence.”

Ray said last semester humbled him and reminded him to be thankful for the ability to do what may seem like simple tasks.

“You don’t need to take stuff for granted,” Ray said, “because you could be in a different situation where it might take you an hour to do something, or you might not be able to do that kind of stuff anymore at all. I mean, it’s a blessing.”

Gunn highlighted how the university and the professors in the program reiterate compassion.

“Nothing about our body and the way that we move and this life that we live is by accident, and it’s all a very intentional design,” Gunn said. “I just feel like our profession is honestly not really one that you can–I don’t know how people can do it without a deep faith because I just feel like OT is really the hands and the feet of Jesus on this earth,” Gunn said.

More information about the university’s graduate OT program can be found on the university website.