In This Issue
Greetings from the University of Puget Sound, School of Occupational Therapy!
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter! We enjoy sharing stories about our different activities and events with our alumni, current students and friends of the OT Program. Faculty, students and staff have been busy working, playing and supporting a variety of activities since our last newsletter. We have highlighted some of these activities for you here, but if you would like to learn more we encourage you to visit Collins Library Sound Ideas page for our program's master's theses to learn more about the different Knowledge Translation Projects. Our students, current and past, have done amazing work and we are proud of their accomplishments.
As many of you have heard, there was a mandate from ACOTE in August 2017 to change the entry-level OT degree from “post-baccalaureate” (i.e., either a Master’s or a Doctorate) to a doctoral level only by 2027. AOTA reached out to ACOTE based on feedback from practitioners and this mandate is now in abeyance and has been referred to the AOTA’s Representative Assembly to act on. Currently, AOTA is gathering additional data and if you are interested in this topic, we would encourage you to reach out and share your opinion through your state AOTA Representative. You can get additional information about the mandate on the AOTA website and find your AOTA state representative here: https://www.aota.org. This discussion at the national level led to an in-depth discussion among the OT faculty at Puget Sound. After several months of data collection and discussion, the School of Occupational Therapy will be transitioning to an entry level doctorate and phasing out the MSOT Program. We anticipate seating the first OTD class in Fall 2020. This has not been an easy decision but, regardless of the outcome at a national level, we feel it is important to position our program and our graduates as leaders. We are currently reviewing our curriculum to ensure that we have the components necessary to prepare our graduates for practice in the changing societal and health climate that we are facing. We welcome any feedback from the field regarding content you wish you had had or that you feel will be needed in the coming years for entry-level practitioners. Please send any comments to yswinth@pugetsound.edu.
Finally, we hope this newsletter finds you well. We look forward to hearing from our graduates, so please drop us a note or stop by if you are in town. We would like to include an alumni update area to the Spring 2019 newsletter, so, if you have any news or pictures to share (personal or professional) please send it to vwalston@pugetsound.edu by January 15th, 2019. Also, if you were forwarded this newsletter, please click here to update your contact information.
Warm regards,
-Yvonne
Congratulations Class of 2018! We look forward to having you as fellow OTR/L's soon!
Academic Year 2017-2018
Hooding Ceremony, May 2018
The University of Puget Sound and the School of Occupational Therapy have a strong commitment to diversity as an essential foundation for professional development within a liberal arts education. The faculty admissions committee works to advance that commitment in creating a diverse student body and future workforce in occupational therapy practice. We are proud to say that our 1st and 2nd year cohorts are both ethnically and educationally diverse.
Please make sure to follow us on Facebook so you can follow along with us during the 2018 - 2019 academic year and see the amazing things our students do!
Our adult and pediatric clinics provide occupational therapy services to local community members with unmet therapy needs. In the spring semester of 2018, 31 occupational therapy students were enrolled in OT661 Applied Clinical Treatment and Management. “Clinic” serves as a Fieldwork Level I experience and prepares students for Fieldwork Level II. This year we had 9 Clinical Instructors and 2 full-time Occupational Therapy Faculty teaching clinic sections and supervising students in the delivery of occupational therapy services in the clinics. Clinical instructors provided over 2,150 hours of onsite supervision and teaching. The 31 students in clinic evaluated and provided ongoing treatment for 64 clients over a twelve-week period for a total of 1,273 individual visits. Many of these clients would not have been eligible to receive services in other clinics due to insurance limitations and waiting lists. These visits equate to approximately $70,000 of occupational therapy services provided to members of the local community.
Feedback from clients and families this year were again, overwhelmingly positive. Some of the highlights included:
Our Puget Sound OT students also perceived their participation and learning in the teaching clinics as highly positive. Students commented:
Finally, we are always in need of community members to attend our pediatric and adult onsite clinics. If you, or someone you know would benefit from free occupational therapy services, please call us at 253-879-3499.
- Jenny Pitonyak & Sheryl Zylstra
On a beautiful August evening, 11 level II fieldwork students in the Tacoma area gathered back on campus for dinner and conversation. The students were about half way through their first placement and had much to share. It was great to hear about their day to day schedules, their student projects, their challenges, and their rewarding experiences.
It has been great to witness students entering the program as excited but wary 1st year students, then progress to more confident 2nd year students. Level II fieldwork brought out the best in these students as they were able to apply their knowledge into practice. I was able to see many of our students in action over the summer as I made fieldwork site visits. I am very grateful to the wonderful fieldwork educators in the community that mentor students and contribute to the future of Occupational Therapy. It has been an added bonus to discover that 11 of the 29 students were being supervised by Puget Sound OT alumni.
Students completed their summer placements on 9/21/18. I am happy to report that all students successfully passed. Congratulations!
- Dawn Yoshimura-Smith
CarFit is an educational program that offers older adults the opportunity to check how well their personal vehicles “fit” them. An annual event held every spring, the CarFit event enriches students’ learning by providing the opportunity to apply their knowledge of adaptations in occupational performance and of community mobility and driving with older adults. It also demonstrates students’ commitment to serving the community that surrounds them. This year the CarFit event was held at two locations, at Tacoma Lutheran Retirement Community and on the Puget Sound campus. Forty-six students from Puget Sound’s MSOT program and Bates Technical College’s OTA program led the event and received their certifications as CarFit Technicians. 27 community members and Puget Sound faculty and staff participated in the event.
CarFit will be held again during the Spring 2019 semester. If you are interested in participating, please contact Wendell Nakamura at wnakamura@pugetsound.edu.
We are seeking a doctorally-prepared occupational therapist to teach in a Masters of Science entry level occupational therapy program with plans to transition to the OTD in the near future. Teaching in a post-professional clinical doctorate program may be included, depending on the expertise of the successful candidate.
If you are interested, or know someone who might be, please visit the university's employment page to find more detailed information about the position.
Chih-Huang is a visiting instructor for the 2018-2019 academic year. Chih-Huang is also a MSOT Post-Professional alumni from the Class of 2003. Here is a little more about him:
Chih-Huang had never expected that an OT education at the University of Puget Sound would plant such challenge-chasing seeds inside of him. He came to Puget Sound from Taiwan originally with the goal of becoming a hand therapist. Not only was he shaped to be a hand therapist, but also to be an independent thinker and problem solver. In the MSOT program Chih-Huang was able to learn from two hand therapists, to design a mobilization orthotic, as well as to examine its effects in a research study. After he finished the degree he practiced hand therapy in Taiwan. Chih-Huang thought he would be satisfied with all the accomplishments, but, deep down, something was missing. He volunteered to start an OT clinic for the medical center on an island of Taiwan where the majority of residents are children and the elderly. Chih-Huang developed a community-based OT clinic. His role shifted gradually from therapist to that of a facilitator. He was selected by the Taiwanese government to join the geriatric care team and develop an interdisciplinary care model for this population. Their model was applied throughout the Taiwan universal health care system. Yet again, there was something missing.
Chih-Huang wanted to learn more about occupation-based practice. Guided by Dr. Virgil Mathiowetz at the University of Minnesota in a PhD program, he systematically reviewed the theory of the Occupational Therapy Task-Oriented approach (OTTO) and developed a clinical application protocol for people with stroke. Specifically, he designed a mobilization forearm orthotic and, in combination with the OTTO, he conducted dissertation research on the role of forearm movement in rehabilitation for this population here at Puget Sound. Chih-Huang completing his dissertation on utilizing motor learning theory with persons post stroke and received his PhD in May 2018.
Chih-Huang moved here with his wife and two year old daughter. He enjoys hiking and is a certified SCUBA instructor, so he should be right at home here in the PNW.
Faculty at their Summer 2018 Faculty Retreat.
Anne James, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA had a busy spring 2018 semester as Interim Program Director during Dr. Yvonne Swinth’s sabbatical. She has two publications this fall; a chapter in the new (13th!) edition of Willard & Spackman’s Occupational Therapy and an article in OT in Health Care on survey research identifying competencies for OT and OTA collaboration, co-authored with colleagues from an AOTA Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) group that includes Dr. Jennifer Pitonyak. Anne also continues to serve on the leadership team of the AOTA SoTL Program. While there may or may not be OT Faculty who are older than Anne (we aren’t saying!), she has been an occupational therapist longer than anyone else (since 1979!). So, the BIG news is that Anne will be retiring from Puget Sound at the end of this semester. She will kick off retirement with Christmas in Paris with her family (her daughter just started grad school there). She is also looking forward to increased time for biking and XC skiing, beginning with spending the winter months with her husband and dog, Siouxsie, at their cabin in Winthrop, maybe she’ll try to ski all 200km of trails this winter since there won’t be papers to grade. Finally, she plans to rejuvenate a long-neglected love of knitting and other artsy endeavors. After a rest, she will dabble in home care, maybe some online teaching or educational consulting, and volunteering with a non-profit in the Methow Valley that supports aging in place.
Where’s Tatiana Kaminsky, PhD, OTR/L?
Tatiana is enjoying a sabbatical for the 2018-19 academic year. Tune in Fall 2019 to find out about her sabbatical adventures.
Wendell Nakamura, DrOT, OTR/L completed his doctoral research and earned his post-professional Doctor of Occupational Therapy (DrOT) degree in December of 2017. His research on client adherence with home programs in chronic disease management reinforces the importance of including client-identified occupations for successful adherence. Dr. Nakamura is currently enrolled in AOTA’s Academic Leadership Institute, which is designed to advance participants’ leadership roles in higher education in occupational therapy. He also continues his second year as co-Chair of the Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DE&I) Committee of the Academy for Communication in Healthcare. The DE&I is committed to advancing the cultural humility and multi-cultural understanding of health care professionals to reduce health care disparities of under-served populations.
Jenny Pitonyak, PhD, OTR/L, SCFES is in her third year at University of Puget Sound and was recently promoted to Associate Professor in the School of Occupational Therapy. She continues to teach Occupational Performance I, Mental Health, and coordinate the adult onsite teaching clinic, and is teaching emerging practice and teaching & learning across contexts in the post-professional DrOT program this year.
She continues to be active in several AOTA Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (SoTL) inquiry communities, and this past year was selected to serve on the SoTL leadership team which plans the SoTL pre-conference institute at the AOTA conference. She is working on a systematic mapping review of critical thinking in occupational therapy education with one of her groups of SoTL collaborators. Jenny is also collaborating with the local Tacoma Pierce County Public Health Department to develop an occupational therapy intervention program that uses a health promotion approach to support family mental health and life course health development. She and two second year OT students are piloting the program this fall. This project is part of her broader research collaborations with Dr. Yvonne Swinth and several other OT researchers in the area of child/youth and family mental health.
Jenny spent time this summer nurturing her garden at home, and trying to make a come-back in trail running!
Yvonne Swinth, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA has enjoyed a year that was balanced with both work and fun. Most notably, she enjoyed a sabbatical during the Spring of 2018, spending that time reading, resting, writing, researching and enjoying extra family time. She has collaborated to with Dr. Doyle (former faculty member) and NBCOT to complete a mixed method study (quantitative and qualitative data) addressing how clinicians are using evidence to inform their practice. The findings from this study are currently being submitted for publication and Dr. Swinth and Dr. Doyle were just awarded funding to put together a professional development package on this topic for NBCOT. When on campus, in addition to teaching and her program director duties, she has continued to work to support children and youth from hard places and their families. This has included working towards becoming a practitioner and trainer Trust Based Relationship Intervention (TBRI) and she is looking forward to helping Puget Sound students and graduates better understand how developmental trauma can impact the development and learning of children and youth. When not working, Yvonne spent a lot of time at gymnastics meets, cello concerts, or out on Anderson Island kayaking, swimming, canoeing and hiking.
George Tomlin, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA has enjoyed another busy year of teaching, scholarship, and professional service. Ten "evidence projects" of second year students collaborating with an OT practitioner to answer a question arising in practice came to a successful close in May. He and Renee Watling are at work bringing along 11 new projects this year, spanning acute care and voc rehab settings to school-based OT. George has contributed three chapters to new books in OT: the scientific reasoning chapter for Schell and Schell's Clinical & Professional Reasoning, a chapter on single case experimental design for the new edition of Clinical Research, this edition by Stein, Rice and Tomlin, and a chapter on the OT Practice Framework and its role in the U.S. OT world, in the book "Das Framework der AOTA." Yes, the chapter he wrote was in German (his first!). George continues to collaborate with European colleagues on publications and for conference presentations, and has helped develop a U.S.-based "Evidence in Practice" group of educators and practitioners, who seek to redefine the landscape for using evidence in practice. On the service side, he continues to be active as a member of the Board of Directors of NBCOT, serving on three committees in addition to the Board itself. Here on campus George is about to start his third year of three on the Faculty Advancement Committee. It consists of five faculty and the Provost, and they are charged with reviewing all the tenure, promotion, and regular evaluation files for each faculty person on campus who is up for review that year. Most of all, though, he still loves teaching biomechanics, research and evidence, and ergonomics! Sybille's and George's younger son, Fred, graduated from Stanford this past May with a PhD in chemistry, and he loves his first job. Some of you may remember testing Fred in the peds lab when he was younger. Seems like he stayed on track, developmentally. Very best wishes to all our program graduates, George
Renee Watling, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, Visiting Assistant Professor teaching in first and second-year courses as well as the DrOT curriculum, had a busy and productive year. She is lead author of the AOTA Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines for Children and Youth with Challenges in Sensory Integration and Sensory Processing, a collaborative effort with authors on both the east and west coasts. The guidelines were published in April 2018 as an ebook. A highlight was traveling to Kerala, India to deliver presentations about occupational therapy and sensory integration to professionals and parents at the 1st International Autism Conference sponsored by CADRRE, a school dedicated to providing high quality and comprehensive care for children with autism in south India.
Dr. Renee Watling recently completed a two-year effort to revise and update the book Autism Across the Lifespan: A Comprehensive Occupational Therapy Approach, now in it’s 4th edition. The book includes 34 chapters from autism experts both inside and outside of occupational therapy including first-person accounts of individuals with autism and their family members. Content includes foundational concepts necessary for understanding autism, summaries of research evidence regarding intervention approaches, and a heavy emphasis on knowledge translation with case examples that illustrate clinical application and clinical reasoning. The book is an excellent resource for pediatric practitioners as well as therapists working across the lifespan with persons with autism spectrum or related disorders.
Autism Across the Lifespan: A Comprehensive Occupational Therapy Approach
Many friendly folk
Beautiful landscapes also
Scotland stole my heart
Kirsten Wilbur, Ed.D., OTR/L was an invited presenter at the 2017 International Higher Education Teaching and Learning Conference at the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley, Scotland. She participated in a panel presentation titled: Reclaiming Educational Leadership: Building Collective, Healing Spaces for Liberatory Education as well as a poster presentation titled: Engaging Diversity: Pushing the Boundaries of Traditional Occupational Therapy Instruction.
After a week at conference Kirsten hiked the West Highland Way with a friend and then traveled around Scotland for a week!
Spring semester 2018 Kirsten was on sabbatical and among the highlights of her time was a visit and presentation at the WFOT conference in Cape Town, South Africa followed by a week-long stay at Juli McGruder’s bed and breakfast on Zanzibar, Tanzania.
The past two summers Kirsten has presented at the Washington Council for Behavioral Health conference in June. In 2017 on the topic of Engaging Diversity: Social & Cultural Awareness for Health Care Providers in Mental Health and in 2018 on Self-Care for Caregiver Fatigue and Burnout. It was exciting to see fellow OTs at the conferences as well as other mental health providers and consumers.
Beyond traveling, Kirsten was busy tending her vegetable and flower gardens, catching up on reading mystery novels, and learning to grow and dye with indigo!
For Dawn Yoshimura-Smith, BSOT, OTR/L, summer is a busy time for fieldwork! Since students start their first level II placement over the summer, Dawn has spent a lot of time laying the groundwork for students to begin their placements. Dawn has been in and out of the office over the summer months making fieldwork site visits – she will have completed 20 visits before classes start at the end of August. There are more to come in the fall and spring. Site visits are a great way to connect with students, student coordinators and fieldwork educators. It has also been a great way to reconnect with our many alumni in the field.
Because summer is so busy, Dawn enjoys play time in the winter. She and her family had a great adventure in Italy in January. Weather was great and crowds were minimal.
Sheryl Zylstra, DOT, OTR/L thoroughly enjoyed several trips this summer. She went to NYC with 2 of her children, Boston with 1 child, and Disneyland with 3/4 of her children. Although all of her children are in their teens to early 20’s they are never too old for a trip to Disney!
Over the summer Sheryl also worked with Yvonne Swinth and Julie Anderson to run our 2nd annual Social Skills Summer Camp. This year we had 8 children participate and we continued collecting data to examine our outcomes. We also had several UPS students participate in our camp (including our own Valerie Walston) which was hugely helpful. The children were wonderful and we had a great time. In addition, we saw some nice gains in social participation skills. We are hoping to continue our summer camp next year. If you, or anyone you know is interested in assisting in our camp please email Sheryl at szylstra@pugetsound.edu.
The adult client I worked with for onsite clinic had a R CVA, resulting in L hemiparesis. One of his goals for clinic was to be able to hold his 5-month-old daughter, who was born after his stroke. With limited strength, range of motion, and function in his left hand, he was unable to independently trim his nails, posing a potential safety risk for his daughter. We decided to address nail care in therapy to support his long-term goal of holding his baby.
We utilized the different adaptive clippers during clinic, but the client required moderate to maximum assistance to position his left upper extremity and utilize the clippers. I began to brainstorm ways to modify the adaptive clippers, which was mounted onto a block for one-handed use. I went to the hardware store, but didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. I walked through the isles looking at cabinet pulls and knobs trying to come up with a way for him to increase independence in this task. At rest, the client’s fingers are flexed so I started to think about building up the handle of the nail clipper. I left the hardware store with corner braces, zip ties, PVC piping, a piece of wood, and pipe insulator.
After playing with the different pieces, I created a handle to add onto the nail clippers. The project cost under $10 to create. This low-tech modification supports independence in an ADL and safety in an IADL, despite the client’s limitations in his left hand. This experience reinforced my creativity and problem-solving skills. Existing adaptive equipment can be great for some clients, but might not be the best fit for others. If there isn’t a readily available solution to a problem, occupational therapists are skilled at creating one. I also realized that adaptations or technology doesn’t mean it must be expensive. This project was inexpensive and was relatively simple to build, making it a very practical solution to solving a client’s problem.
Typical nail clipper mounted to a wood |
Two corner braces zip tied together then duck taped to the nail clipper handle |
Removable built up handle (PVC pipe with insulator) |
Weight of user’s hand helps assist operation |
Removable built up handle allows user to open affected hand and maintain position to trim nails easily. Client can use unaffected hand to assist in putting built up handle in affected hand then place on corner braces to operate nail clipper. |
Before the start of my first Fieldwork II rotation my fieldwork educators (FWE) scheduled a conference call to chat about logistics of the first day. My placement was in acute care at Providence St. Vincent’s Hospital in Portland, OR and I was excited, albeit a little nervous to finally starting putting what I had learned at Puget Sound into practice. On the call I learned that both of my FWE’s were former UPS grads and immediately felt more at ease about my first day of fieldwork. Martha Scherzinger and Laura Kingston had attended Puget Sound at the same time and a few years later happened to work at the same hospital. The three of us chatted about what a wonderful experience the on-site clinic was and about the professors we had in common (George Tomlin and Juli McGruder).
My first month in acute care felt like a blur, likely due to the fast pace of the hospital and the new learning that was taking place. Each patient presented unlike the one previous, with a different diagnosis and comorbidities, unique sets of precautions, and assist levels needed. And each patient came with a unique occupational profile separate from their diagnosis, and individualized goals of what was most important to them to accomplish. Little by little, things began to take shape and start to click into place, I felt less like a spinning top and more like a fieldwork student walking and talking with a true purpose. The electronic medical records were less daunting to review, my neuro evaluations and cognitive assessments were starting to flow, and my notes were more succinct and produced in a shorter time frame. Martha and Laura, both supportive and brilliant practitioners, stepped back a little more each week, and I stepped forward. I stepped forward with more confidence in my abilities as a student practitioner, while continuing to draw from my studies at Puget Sound and meld them with the real time experiences at St. Vincent’s.
Fast forward eight weeks and I am evaluating and treating patients mostly on my own with my FWEs standing in the doorways or down the hall. I attend stroke rounds with other disciplines and regularly contribute status updates on my patients. There is still so much for me to learn at St. Vincent’s and I am doing my best to try to ask questions, seek out clarification, and ask for help when necessary. The remaining four weeks are going to fly by. I am thankful to have this opportunity to dovetail my learning at Puget Sound with clinical practice at St. Vincent’s and to continue to foster and develop my client centered care and clinical reasoning skills. I am already looking forward to my next fieldwork placement.
This marked the 2nd year occupational therapy faculty Yvonne Swinth and Sheryl Zylstra, along with adjunct faculty member Julie Anderson, initiated a Social Skills Camp for children on the University of Puget Sound campus. This project will continue on an annual basis and be a service to children and families in the local community. Sheryl and Julie ran the camp activities and supervised student volunteers. Activities included learning how to listen with your whole body, how to have conversations with peers, how to deal with winning and losing, tools for self-regulating, and included lots of fun games and crafts. While the their children were in camp, the parents met daily with Yvonne to discuss and problem-solve how to to apply the principles learned at camp in the home and school settings.
There were 4 student participants, and each student put in over 45 hours of material preparation, set up, and student interaction. Their help was invaluable!
The 16th Annual Research Conference of the Society for the Study of Occupation: USA (SSO: USA) is happened in Seattle, October 19-21, 2017, and our faculty and students were involved in the planning and as presenters. Jennifer Pitonyak, clinical assistant professor, served as the conference committee chair for SSO:USA in 2016 and was integral in bringing the conference to Seattle in 2017. She is served as the registration coordinator for conference, as well as on the local planning committee.
Two Puget Sound School of Occupational Therapy faculty and one current student were involved in 4 different accepted conference presentations. Caitlin Mitchell, class of 2018, collaborated with students from the occupational therapy programs at University of Washington and Temple University, with the mentorship of Dr. Pitonyak and Roger Ideishi, Associate Professor and Program Director at Temple University, on a forum examining disparities in gender representations in occupational therapy literature.
Kirsten Wilbur, clinical assistant professor, along with Dr. Pitonyak, presented a theoretical paper that highlights authentic learning experiences in our School of OT curriculum that strive to meet the needs of a diverse community and instill appreciation and respectful for diversity in occupation.
Dr. Pitonyak was part of two additional forums. She presented her work on applying the life course health development model to theory, research, and practice in occupational science and occupational therapy. This forum is a collaboration with Jyothi Gupta, Professor and Chair of the OT Department at A. T. Still University, and maternal child health researchers from the Life Course Research Network at UCLA. Dr. Pitonyak was also a co-presenter for an additional forum examining the experience of community social participation for children with developmental disabilities and their families. This forum included School of OT alumnae, Caroline Umeda, as a presenter and is based on her current doctoral research examining family social participation in cultural arts activities. Other collaborators for this forum included Tracy Jirikowic and Don Fogelberg, both faculty at UW, and Dr. Ideishi from Temple University.
The SSO: USA is a research society that strives to build the body of knowledge in occupational science to benefit humanity. One of the unique features of SSO:USA conference is the attention devoted to balance in occupations and the quality of conference participants experiences.
The School of Occupational Therapy plans to host another certified infant massage instructor (CIMI) training in 2019. The International Loving Touch Foundation, Inc. will hold a 2-day CIMI workshop on campus March 22-23, 2019. The Loving Touch CIMI workshop is an evidence-based training program that prepares participants with the knowledge and skills to teach infant massage techniques to caregivers of infants and young children. Infant massage has a number of demonstrated health benefits, including the promotion of mental health through caregiver-infant positive social interactions. The workshop is open to students, health providers, parents/caregivers, and others. Registration information is available at: http://www.lovingtouch.com
We will be hosting another alumni gathering at AOTA's Annual Conference and Expo. The gathering will be held Thursday, April 4, 2019 in the evening after the Expo Grand opening from 8:30pm - 10:30pm. Location is currently TBD and will be announced via our Facebook page.
The 2019 Student Research Symposium will be held on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 from 6 to 9pm. More details to follow on our website in the Spring 2019 semester.
