Change... the easy path.

We were having a meeting the other day about how to increase the awareness of Functional Therapy and get more OTs and COTAs to join. We got to talking about how difficult change is. Lindsay Neumann, RFT, said, "Sometimes it's just easier to go along the way that things are. Most times actually."

Well it didn't take long for it to come around to how difficult it has been for each of us to be Occupational Therapists. There were a cascade of difficulties:

1. To learn about the profession in time to choose it as a career - Very Difficult.
2. To explain to your family what you were studying - Very very difficult... because you barely knew yourself.
3. Graduating, finding a job. Not too difficult... because so many people were beat by #1. Therefore there is a huge shortage of OTs. Easy to find job, but...
4. Staffing for OTs is largely influenced by the difficulty that upper administration has in understanding what OT might do. Incredibly difficult.
5. Then, let's mention the many discussions you'll have trying to explain OT. Difficult but fun.
6. Then, your ears perk up when someone says Occupation or Occupational and you wonder if they are talking about anything related to your profession. They aren't. Our definition still hasn't got into the dictionary - difficult.
7. Then you do this for year after year... it was so much more fun when I started. Difficult.
8. Then you get involved with a group who wants to provide an alternative name and change is difficult.

So, the only thing that would have made this easier would have been to do something about it 89 years ago, or 8 or 9 years ago. There is no time like the present. Make the change now and maybe we'll get past some of this stuff.

Please check us out at www.FunctionalTherapist.org and look at joining us. And if you're already a member let's get to work popularizing Functional Therapy.

Yours,

Ed Kaine, OTR/L, RFT

President of the American League of Functional Therapists

Contact us at: RegisteredFunctionalTherapist@gmail.com