Occupational therapy is a clinical profession that focuses on helping people regain, maintain, or develop skills they need to function in their everyday lives.
Occupational therapists address physical, cognitive, and mental abilities and work with people of all ages and in all locations, including hospitals, schools, clinics, and private residences.
Study Occupational Therapy at IC
Ithaca College’s occupational science/occupational therapy program is a five-year program that confers a master of science degree.
Throughout the program students are assigned to a fieldwork site and continually work on advanced skills and research. They learn the techniques needed to help people cope with physical, developmental, and cognitive disabilities.
The program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE).
Ithaca College occupational therapy students consistently perform above national averages on licensure exams. More than 98 percent of Ithaca College students pass the exam compared to the national average of 77 percent.
Last spring an invitation went out to senior occupational therapy majors to join a unique research opportunity. Julie Dorsey, assistant professor of occupational therapy, was looking for students to help conduct a needs assessment for the Ithaca Free Clinic. I had often wondered about the clinic, and I jumped at the chance to be involved with this research.
The Ithaca Free Clinic is a holistic health care center offering a variety services to people who have little or no medical insurance. All the clinicians are volunteers from the community, and they provide basic medical care, nutrition consultation, acupuncture, herbalist appointments, and chiropractic services.
The assessment team comprised Professor Dorsey, Rebecca Palmese, M.S. ’09, Jenessa Fisk, M.S. ’09, and me. Our first step was to survey community members and the patients and staff at the clinic to find out how the occupational therapy department could best partner with the clinic.
Taryn Michelitch, M.S. ’09 tests a patient's coordination by having him draw x's in the center of a series of circles on a white board.
Our team was excited to be involved in something new and different, and after a semester of collecting surveys, the results showed that clinic clients would be likely to use a variety of direct occupational therapy services. We presented our findings in a proposal to Steve Siconolfi, the dean of the School of Health Sciences and Human Performance. After reviewing the proposal, he approved a budget and we began offering services to the clinic as part of a pilot class. We were joined by classmate Anna Yahner, M.S. ’09 as we performed our first evaluations, treated our first clients, and led an in-service presentation for the clinic doctors.
The Ithaca Free Clinic gave us experience with a population that few of us had worked with before. We had to be conscious of special issues that affected our low-income clients. For example, many clients relied on public transportation, making it difficult and time-consuming for them to make appointments. Others did not have consistently working phones to confirm appointments.
We also had to modify our home programs to fit the equipment that our clients had -- for example, figuring out a way for clients to warm heating packs without a microwave. The most significant difference for me was the need to work without a conclusive diagnosis. Most of our clients could not afford diagnostic tests such as X-ray or MRI, so we had to use our evaluation skills and shift our treatment plans as changes arose.
Beyond treating patients, we were involved in education and publicity. We gave an informal presentation for other clinic doctors to describe the occupational therapy services we could offer and answer questions about patients who might be appropriate for referral for occupational therapy. We sent information to other organizations in the community that serve populations similar to the clinic clientele.
Last, we traveled to the annual conferences of the New York Occupational Therapy Association and the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professionals and gave poster presentations about our work. We felt empowered networking and exchanging program ideas with other students and professionals in our field.
These experiences have been invaluable to me and my classmates. I gained unique research and treatment experience, and had to solve problems and adjust plans quickly. I gave professional presentations and watched a program grow from proposal to reality, and as a result, I continue to have bigger and better hopes for the Ithaca Free Clinic partnership with IC occupational therapy students. The class will run again next semester with more student and faculty involvement. I hope that there will be more program planning and more integration into the occupational therapy coursework because the partnership with the clinic is such a rich learning environment.
Working with the Ithaca Free Clinic has reaffirmed one of the main reasons I chose Ithaca’s occupational therapy program: its vast and diverse clinical opportunities for students. I’ve been involved with the on-campus pediatric clinic every semester since my sophomore year, and I spent two semesters with the Center for Life Skills, an interdisciplinary treatment program for clients who have had strokes. The opportunities I’ve had at the Ithaca Free Clinic and on-campus clinics have provided incredible hands-on learning experiences. I hope that the students who follow in our footsteps not only benefit from the chance to work at the Ithaca Free Clinic but also know that it’s possible for them to develop new programs, just like we did.
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Fuse is a student produced publication about the Ithaca College experience. All content in the print and web versions of Fuse is developed by current Ithaca College students in a breadth of different areas of study.
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