Tips for surviving Level 2 Fieldwork

Level 2 fieldwork is one of the most exciting, challenging, overwhelming, and rewarding experiences. You finally get to put all your skills to the ultimate test and more importantly.. you finally aren't sitting in a classroom for hours upon hours being bored and listening to your professors ramble on. I guarantee
you will learn more in ONE week of full time fieldwork than you did your entire 2 years in school. It's exciting.. yet oh so stressful!

I did my peds rotation at the Alabama Institute for Deaf & Blind and my adult rotation was at Life Care Center of Punta Gorda, FL. It was nothing but a 6 month rollercoaster of ups and downs. I actually had emotional breakdowns at least once at both locations and I'm lucky to have had CIs that were so supportive!

Anyway, here are my tips for making the most of your fieldwork experience:

1. Use your research skills. If something doesn't make sense that day or you have no idea what your CI is talking about-- ASK. Then, go home and look it up and make sure you are prepared for the next day. There are so many more diagnoses than we learned about in school and I spent so many nights researching the less common ones so that I could understand my patients better.

2. ASK QUESTIONS! Your CI wants to know that you are interested and that you are making an effort to learn and become a good therapist. They don't expect you to know everything.. TRUST ME. I am one of those people that doesn't particularly love asking questions but sometimes there are just things that you won't know and you have to ASK! Your CI agreed to take on the role of instructor and that is their job- to teach.

3. Don't be too hard on yourself. Like I said, you aren't supposed to know everything. I know therapists that have been practicing for years and they still don't always know everything. You will constantly be learning and researching even after 10 years of practice.

4. Make friends with someone from each other discipline: physical therapy, speech therapy, social work, teachers, nurses, CNAs, wound care, etc. You will be surprised the things you can learn from these other professionals. Ask for advice, build a relationship, and take a page from their book. I had no idea how to put TED hose on a patient or how to operate a hoyer lift but the CNAs and rehab techs taught me little tricks to make my life easier! It's a team effort, people :)

5.This might sound bad.. and it kinda is. Forget about your textbooks. I mean, yes, keep them. They have valuable information in them for sure and you will NEED them. BUT. Forget what they tell you to do. In real life, its almost nothing like what the books say. Not every patient is a textbook diagnosis and more often than not, they have multiple diagnoses so its never exactly "by the book." Once you learn to accept that what you spent years studying may not be correct, you can move forward to thinking outside of the box. OT is all about being creative and flexible anyway, right?

6. Remember your role as the student. You are there to learn, not to be someone's slave to do all their "bitch work" BUT remember sometimes you might have to do extra tasks or projects because you are the student. Try not to think of it as being degraded but take it as an extra learning opportunity.

7. BE ON TIME. If that means not having enough time to put your mascara on before you leave. then so be it. Get your butt there on time and be ready to start right away with patients. If you have a small caseload, you might be able to spend a few minutes in the morning catching up on the TV show the night before, but usually you should be ready to go. Professional.

8. Don't complain about being a student. Everyone had to go through the same thing, everyone worked for free, everyone took the NBCOT exam. So suck it up and do it like everyone else did before you. Embrace the fact that you are a level 2 student and use the safety net of fieldwork before you are really on your own!

9. Be able to accept constructive criticism. I know, I know, its hard for me too. Just sit there and smile and nod. THEN go home and vent :) Take the criticism, accept it, learn from it and become a better therapist because of it.

10. aaaannnd finally 10 is: BE CONFIDENT. I'm actually laughing as I type this because I am/was totally NOT confident on fieldwork. On both of my final evaluations, my CIs both wrote a blurb about how I need to be more confident. It's easier said than done. I get it. It's hard to be confident when you're just a student, you don't have nearly as much experience as others, and you don't even have a license. All you can do is just PRETEND you know what you are doing. Your patients will trust you and your CI will be proud of you for making an effort. You just finished a very intense graduate program and you know more than you think you know--I PROMISE.

These 6 months will be exhausting yet so rewarding in the end. If you're lucky like me, you will have  2 AMAZING CIs that you still keep in touch with even after you finish your rotation.
GOOD LUCK BABY OTs :)