Reflective Journal #2

Week Two

It's been about two full weeks since the start of all our classes. Unlike undergrad, it seems more interactive and the relationship between the professors and us students seem more flexible. It's been nice. The professors have been very nice, and very down to earth. It's been interesting listening to all the different perspectives of my classmates during lecture. We all come from such different backgrounds, and it's evident during discussion. Biology majors such as myself seem to have a full grasp of classes like Anatomy and "neuroscience", but are boggled by classes like Foundations of Research. I'm sooooooo confused in that class. Emic? Etic? I didn't even know those were words. And the program? So far so good! (except for the endless emails and assignments, yikes!)

I decided to enroll in an Inter-Professional Education (IPE) course called Communications I. It's not mandatory for my degree, but we need a certain number of IPE credits to graduate. I don't know exactly how it works, but that's what I've been told. It's been pretty interesting. You read a bunch of articles online and discuss it on a forum. It's not just for students in Occupational Therapy, but from all backgrounds (Nutrition, etc).

There was a statement from one of my classmates that caught my interest. Her belief was that growing as OTs mean helping clients in a way that doesn't conflict with our own values. This thought never crossed my mind before this post. Let's take my views on smoking as an example. I am highly against it. I basically begged and cried to try to get my boyfriend to quit smoking (and he has been trying, yay!) for as long as I can remember, because 1) I do not "believe" in smoking, and 2) it really has no benefits (health, money, etc). When I asked him why he felt the need to smoke, he said it was a part of him and it helped him to relax. He was really upset by the thought of not smoking, and we had many arguments which stemmed from this. Despite his emotional connection to smoking, I stuck with my anti-smoking campaign. I know that was just an example, but if a client placed value and had meaning associated with smoking, what would I do as an OT? Before pondering about this question, I would have answered, "No way, I would never do something that demote my own personal beliefs." But up on some thought, I think I would be able to put aside my some of my own beliefs for the well-being of my clients.

One of my professors in class noted that she held cigarettes for her client, because her client could no longer hold the cigarettes herself. She realized how much smoking meant to her client, and helped her to smoke despite her own beliefs against smoking. Although I, too, have strong beliefs against smoking, my most important value as an OT would be to enable people to perform meaningful activities and occupations. Just because I do not associate cigarettes with a meaning, it doesn't mean my clients have to agree. Smoking is bad for the health, yes, but if I were to somehow prevent my clients from smoking, and smoking had some sort of a meaning to them, it could be detrimental to their affective health. Although it may be difficult for me to set aside my personal beliefs and values, as a future OT, I will try my best to place the highest value and priority to the interests of the clients. After all, health is more than just the absence of disease, and is highly influenced by choice and control in every day occupations. As OTs and health care professionals, we should all strive to optimize the health (physical, emotional, etc) of our clients.