My name is Donna Christensen. I've been an occupational therapist for twenty years and I've been working in home care for about the past nine years.

I knew in high school that I was interested in a health care field but wasn't quite sure which one I wanted. And I worked in an extended care facility that actually happened to have an occupational therapist. And as I could see what she was doing and could see the other fields around me I knew that was what I wanted to do.

At this point you need to have four years of university to become an occupational therapist. There are some programs in Canada where you have one year of general arts and sciences and then take three years specific of occupational therapy. And there are a couple of programs that have four years of straight occupational therapy.

To be an occupational therapist it's really important to be flexible, to have good people skills, to be interested in working with people. You have to be adaptable, you have to be interested in problem solving and analyzing what's happening and what needs to be done to achieve the goal you want.

Teamwork in occupational therapy is essential because you work as a very close member of a team and most places that occupational therapists work, if you can't function as a team you would find this a very difficult position.

In health care, change is a very intricate part right now and in occupational therapy (perhaps more than most) you would need to be able to adapt to change, almost constantly. We've gone more and more from treating clients with very light disabilities to people who have very intensive disabilities and it requires a lot of adaptive equipment, a lot of thinking, a lot of ability to find something new that's going to solve your new problem.

In occupational therapy, and especially in home care, I would think problem solving is one of the most basic aspects of the position. If there's a problem, occupational therapist is often called in to analyze what the person has for strengths, what the person needs, what the environment involves and then come up with a solution. So, it would be a very intrical part of OT.

Keeping up to the medical changes and the new knowledge that's always been growing and growing in the field, one has to constantly strive to keep updated with the newest technical information and the newest equipment available, and it's always an ongoing process.

For training I think a lot of therapists right now are trying to gain very specialized knowledge, whether it's a neuro-developmental technique or perhaps into a very specific field such as hand therapy. In my position, I do a lot more general things but one always tries to find more specific things to gain knowledge in.

I suppose I could describe my typical day as reading through my referrals, prioritizing because it's impossible these days in health care to do everything that one would want to do, selecting my clients, calling them, setting up appointments. And then by usually 9:30, 10:00 in the morning I'm out in the community for the rest of the day doing such things as assessing for accessibility, doing some treatments especially for people with neurological disabilities, ordering equipment, trying to help people come up with solutions to be more independent at home. And in a lot of cases, writing up directions for care staff on how to transfer to move a client.

I think the most challenging part of occupational therapy is that there is always something different to try. Every person has their own unique set of problems, unique set of strengths, lives in their own environment. And to combine all that together and come up with a solution that is agreeable to the client, to the staff, to everyone involved is a very interesting challenge.

The most satisfying part of occupational therapy for me is that when a person has a difficulty and they've set a goal they want to reach and you help them reach that goal, that's a very satisfying feeling.

The pay scale is fairly reasonable in occupational therapy. Certainly there are opportunities to travel outside of Canada. There are a lot of countries, such as the United States, who are offering fairly substantial renumeration for occupational therapist to go work in the States. I would think it would be fairly comparable to health care salaries.

To enter occupational therapy the competition to get in is quite intense because there are a lot of job opportunities available. It's not one that's likely to be replaced by computers in the near future. It has lots of challenge, lots of scope and lots of different areas to work in. But because the competition is so high you certainly have to have excellent marks to get in and I would encourage anyone who is thinking of occupational therapy to do volunteer work, especially in a health care setting if at all possible, and keep your marks as high as possible.