Do you know what type of OT you want to be in 10 years’ time? If you’re feeling a little lost, frustrated or bored in your current role, thinking about the bigger picture can be helpful. One way to help figure out that ‘bigger picture’ is to use the Royal College of OTs Career Development Framework. It outlines four career pathways an OT may take, and I think I’ve had a little taste of all of them.

The four pathways, or pillars, are:

• Professional practice

• Facilitation of Learning

• Leadership

• Evidence, research and development

But there was one area that I’ve always had a special interest in – can you guess which one?

In this blog I’ll outline my personal experience exploring the type of OT I want to be and give you some suggestions for how to take your first steps along each pathway.

Professional Practice

This pillar is all about becoming a clinical specialist – the go-to OT guru in a particular area of practice. When I started my career, I was lucky enough to be in a rotating hospital position. I got to experience a wide range of caseloads one at a time to allow me to build my confidence and competence in a particular clinical area, before being challenged with something new. I worked in aged care, neurosciences, surgical and medical wards, ICU, and hand therapy, but my favourite area of all was the burns unit.

Definitely not for everyone, and the OT role was so different to all the other caseloads, but I loved it. My day involved helping nurses hold limbs or take out staples in a dressing change, to splinting a patient while they were still in the operating theatre, finding ways to motivate patients to do their hand exercises even though I could see how tough it was for them, and getting creative making my own built up non-slip cutlery with paper towel and coban when the proper ones disappeared back to the kitchen on a lunch tray once again.

As much as I enjoyed the team, the role and the challenge, there were many times when I felt more excited about teaching a new OT how to do those things. But if you’re an OT that loves to be the one who is hands on working with your clients every day, this pathway could be for you.

My suggestion for this pathway is to make the most of all opportunities to learn more about your chosen clinical area. Read articles where you can learn not only about the OT role, but about what other members of the multidisciplinary team do. Go to courses that will teach you more than the basics; find the courses the gurus are running and go to those too (you may need to save up or win the lotto first) – it will be well worth the investment to move from competency to mastery. And if you have the opportunity to work alongside an experienced clinician, ask lots of questions!

Leadership

The next pillar is leadership. It’s all about being an amazing people manager who helps clients not through being hands-on themselves, but by building fantastic teams of clinicians who do the hands-on work. A few years into my career I had the opportunity to lead a small team in a hospital OT department. I loved when careful planning and organisation meant the team could function efficiently. It was nice having junior staff coming to me for advice, and even nicer when someone said, ‘You’d be a great OT department head Clare!’

But at the same time, I could see the hard parts too, especially when observing those in leadership positions above me. The stress of dealing with recruitment freezes and budget cuts. Having to performance manage staff members who weren’t fulfilling their duties. And trying to keep staff happy and motivated when the systems we were working in seemed to have way too much red tape and a complete lack of logic. I was happy leading my little team, but I knew I didn’t want to take it further than that.

That sort of leadership role wasn’t for me, but you may be reading this section with a can-do attitude thinking “these are the challenges I love tackling!” If you are, start binging podcasts on leadership qualities, including those outside of health. When you’re planning your CPD for the year, include some courses on leadership skills. And if you’re already leading a small team, invest in some coaching for yourself so you can step up to the next level without sinking.

Evidence, research and development

This one is all about being a proud #OTNerd to the max! It may sound right up my alley, and in many ways it is. The quality improvement evidence folder in my hospital OT department was full of projects I’d come up with. I spent many hours staying back after work analysing the medical records of burns patients to complete a research project that I later presented at an international conference. And when there was an opportunity to create a journal club in my workplace, I jumped at the opportunity – and did it in two different workplaces!

I still love this stuff, and have found a way to include it in my own business. There may even be a PhD on the to-do list one day, but I’ve got a few other important plans to get through first.

If you’re still reading this section of the article and weren’t scared away by the mention of QI and journal clubs, there are lots of ways you can upskill. Start with just reading more articles and learning how to do a basic critique (my Your OT Tutor Journal Club can help with that). If there’s an issue bugging you in your clinical practice, make it a formal QI project to find a solution. And when the local university advertises that they’re having a free research showcase, go along and hear about what sort of projects OTs are working on.

Facilitation of learning

That takes us to the last pillar – the one about teaching others. It involves supervision, mentoring, teaching and peer support to strengthen the performance of others. Very early in my career I enjoyed teaching others. Maybe it comes from many years of being a big sister and teaching younger siblings, but those I taught told me I was quite good at it too.

I started with just supervising my first student, then one day sitting in the role of a student unit supervisor at a large teaching hospital, organising 70 student placements each year. Whenever I went to a course and people were interested to know what it was about, I turned it into a short presentation at a staff meeting to share my take home message and suggestions for how we may be able to improve our practice based on what I had learned. When I couldn’t find a role that would allow me to focus primarily on being a clinical educator, without the pressure of a clinical caseload too, I decided to create my own role. And that’s how and why Your OT Tutor was created.

If you haven’t guessed already, even though I’ve thought about careers in each of the pillars over the years, it’s this one focused on facilitation of learning that I’m keen on at the moment. If you love teaching others as much as I do, here are some small steps you can start with. Make an offer to host a student placement – no one tests your ability to reflect on and explain your clinical reasoning clearly like an OT student with loads of questions! Get comfortable presenting to others, even if it just means starting with a small informal presentation for your team in a morning tea break. And when you’re watching a webinar or workshop, take note of the presenters teaching style and the effectiveness of the presentation format – it will give you ideas for what you think works well for your own training.

If you’re still reading, hopefully there was something in here that inspired you or gave you some ideas for what your own pathway might be.

If you’ve got an idea, make sure you keep it in mind when planning your CPD for the year. What small steps can you add in for this year, that will set you up to be the OT you want to be in 10 years’ time?

P.S. If you found this newsletter helpful, check out the Your OT Tutor website and subscribe to the mailing list or sign-up for the Learning Library – there are heaps of resources, courses, and CPD opportunities, with more being added regularly. Or go all out and join the Your OT Tutor Alliance and become a better OT who loves what you do!

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