Do What You Love

Ep 8. Virtual Placements: Students Edition

November 07, 2020 Season 1 Episode 8
Do What You Love
Ep 8. Virtual Placements: Students Edition
Show Notes Transcript

What do students think about virtual placements?  In our latest episode of the Do What You Love podcast, Anna chats with occupational therapy students, Rachel Hepton, Georgia Vine, Leah Holloway, and Melissa Chieza about their experiences with virtual placements.

Highlights:

1) Learn about Rachel's placement in a social prescribing role and how the virtual placement allowed her to access more international learning and knowledge sharing opportunities

2) Learn about Georgia's virtual placement - that started even before COVID - about online communities and online healthcare

3) Learn about Melissa's virtual placement in London - it also involved social prescribing 

4) Learn about Leah's placement in public health and what she learned about what occupational therapists can do in health promotion

5) Learn from students about how virtual placement and virtual practice and grow and support diversity and occupational justice within our profession.

Amelia Fletcher:

Welcome to the, Do What You Love podcast. We believe that doing and belonging contribute to wellbeing. And through this podcast, we will explore how to share strategies for doing exactly that what you love. Although some members are health and wellbeing professionals. This podcast provides wellness management in an informational manner only. Under no circumstances should this podcast substitute for a call or visit with a healthcare professional that is, or can become familiar with your lived experience.

Anna Braunizer:

hi everyone. It's Anna here! Today, I'm joined by students who recently completed, or are participating in, virtual placements for their occupational development as on their road to becoming practitioners. I'm joined by Georgia Vine, Rachel Hepton, Leah Holloway, and Melissa Chieza. So to start off the conversation and to get to know everyone here, who are you and what did you do on your virtual placement?

Rachel Hepton:

Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm a second year occupational therapy student at the University of Lincoln. I'm on a pre-registration MSC course so I'm really nearly finished and I was on a role emerging. A virtual placement in a voluntary service in a social prescribing team. So my task within the role emerging side was to review the service and then create something based in occupational therapy and theory and research for the social prescribers to use.

Anna Braunizer:

Cool. That's sweet. Yeah. It's nice to see the translation of occupational therapy with social prescribing because social prescribing has been coming up a lot more in the literature and in practice, in clinics, in medical clinics. And it's nice to see the role of occupational therapists really recognized in the arena. What about you, Melissa?

Melissa Chieza:

hello, my name is Melissa. So, I'm a final year occupational therapy student at London, South bank on the BSC course. My placement was a virtual role-emerging placement within a mental health organization. so basically my role in this placement was to assess clients over the telephone then signpost or refer them into services. So we'd use a bit of social prescribing as well. Um, the service had initially adapted from face-to-face to virtual. Say, as you can imagine, a lot of our clients, Greece were in the elderly populations. They imagine having to adapt to online platform has been quite a change for this organization.

Anna Braunizer:

And Georgia.

Georgia Vine:

Hello? I am Georgia, a final year BSC occupational therapy student from Sheffield Hallam university in the UK. My placement was a role-emerging placement in which I was raising awareness of the importance of online communities for disabled people. As part of my real life, did we keep blog posts about online communities and online healthcare. I also hosted a webinar about online communities and virtual working in occupational therapy.

Anna Braunizer:

And Leah, what was your placement?

Leah Holloway:

My placement was public health, England another role emerging. So most of the areas that I worked in there, wasn't an OT there already. We had lots of different projects, all sort of looking at different health inequalities around Both the public and healthcare professionals themselves. So that was really interesting. We got to, got to do quite a lot.

Anna Braunizer:

and what did you most enjoy about doing a placement virtually?

Rachel Hepton:

Okay so I really enjoyed a lot of my virtual placement and I think because it was virtual, and something that I wouldn't have been able to do if it wasn't virtual, was to get a really wide context of health care services and then not just services in the UK. I was able to go to a lot of webinars. And international webinars and things. So I went to some in Australia and I talked to people in India and some people in Mexico and things like that. So, I wouldn't have been able to do that if it was not online. So I think that was such a benefit so that helped me to get a, really, a really broad picture of the service and see how particularly social prescribing, because it's new and it's up and coming everywhere. It was really good to see how it fits in with other healthcare services, which are more like deeply rooted and longer standing and see how it fits in the wider context. Yeah.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, that's something I've really enjoyed about COVID-one of the silver linings- it's that accessibility of online learning. I went to a conference in Australia, went to conferences across North America. I went to a UK conference and yeah. Before I wouldn't have had the finances to afford to go to so many conferences and all that travel and accommodations and workshops and webinars. And it just, it makes it so much more accessible. And there's this gap, generally, between the knowledge that's produced in universities and academia, and the knowledge that gets used in practice, and I think it's going to start helping to close that gap. It's very exciting. Melissa, what did you most enjoy about doing a placement virtually?

Melissa Chieza:

I think for me, it's been, an insight because obviously you're seeing the patients were actually from home and say, a lot of your clients don't need to take time out from work. Either, you can just have your telephone assessment over the phone, um, any way, like you don't have to be disclose like to your employees that I've got an appointment, like things are becoming more accessible, but I think, um, another thing, the way social prescribing fits in as well, it's been quite eye opening because you can just say, okay, there's this pathway that's available. You can self refer. So in a way you're sort of saying. You're using an educational approach to educate the client. Like you can still support them, but give them minimal assistance to get the tools they need by just allowing them to do the next step. Um, the only thing I would've said that wasn't as good as sometimes when they're self-reporting on the telephone, you can't really see someone's facial expressions so that can be a bit tricky when you're assessing and you don't know is the person that you're talking to okay? Which has, can be a bit of a barrier. I think.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, I definitely have that too in my practice. In community-based practice, I work with people in- person, I work with people virtually over Microsoft teams now, and I also work with people sometimes over the phone, just based on where their technology comfort is. We can adapt it and tailor it to what each person needs. Um, at first, the first week of COVID, we didn't have Microsoft teams yet. And there's a client that I was supposed to see in person we'd been scheduled for that Friday and everything shut down for us on the Wednesday. So we're like, okay, how can we do this assessment? And I was like, well, let's use the phone, see what we can get. It was hard to see like their emotions. And I was like, am I really connecting with you? Like. I'm like, I'm really trying to understand what's going on. Um, and something that was really reinforcing for me that this could be a really useful approach that we can use in the future is they were really happy. They told me like,"I'm really glad you were my occupational therapist. And I really felt connected and that you are, I can feel that you're supporting me". And, so that really gave me faith in the system and doing things virtually. I'm like, well, if we get this on the phone, it's going to be a lot easier with a screen. Georgia?

Georgia Vine:

I enjoyed most about the placement was being independent. I've never been as independent on a placement before, as I was on my virtual placement. And this independence has really helped my confidence and I hope to carry this confidence through to my final placement.

Anna Braunizer:

And Leah, what did you most enjoy?

Leah Holloway:

I feel like I'd be repeating a lot of what everybody said, really. Just like Rachel, we could engage with people from all over the world. One of our particular projects looked at the mental wellbeing of paramedics and ambulance staff. And we had quite a few meetings with people in Australia to see what they're doing and how we can bring that to what we're doing. Um, and that was, that was really good. It's something that we wouldn't really be able to do very easily if we were not virtual, if we're in person. In fact, I think a lot of the meetings we had people from all over the UK. Um, we had people who had sort of left or visited family before travel restrictions were in so had been sort of stuck in the States, for example, for months, but they were not too badly impacted because they could use virtual means. We didn't have patients so much in this particular role, it was a lot more sort of strategic and policy- based research and things like that. But it was just really useful being able to contact because everybody was at home virtually near the computer during those hours. Um, it was just really humbling getting a response quite quick, or, um, it felt sometimes felt as though things moved a lot faster. Well, sometimes that could be excellent. Sometimes you think, Oh, you know, it's going really quickly and I haven't got time to breathe, but for the most part, I think it was, you know, really productive and I managed to network with a lot more people than I'd have been able to, if I, if it wasn't virtual,

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, definitely that"flying by the seat of your pants" is what we call it over here sometimes. so our next question for everyone, if you were to do a virtual placement again, what lessons would you take with you to improve the experience?

Rachel Hepton:

so I think the thing that I found most difficult about this placement was like communicating with a supervisor, um, because it felt very autonomous working and doing a virtual placement when you're at home. You're not seeing someone every day. And so I think communication with a supervisor was quite tricky. So I think if I was to do it again, I would have been really clear with my supervisor about what my expectations were for the placement, how often I expected to see the supervisor, how often. we would have meetings and what we would talk about in those meetings, those kinds of things. Um, and I wouldn't make any assumptions in the way that the placement was going to work as I would do with every other kind of placement that was face-to-face. I would always assume that there would be a structure that would be very similar. Um, so yeah, I think it's all in like the organization before the placement. I would've put more energy into that.

Melissa Chieza:

I think for me, um, similar to Rachel about being more autonomous, I think, as a student, I think when you're doing a virtual placement, I think you need to be more aware, realistic- like you're going to be left alone quite a bit by yourself. Um, the expectation, this is a role-emerging it's different to a traditional placement. The expectations are higher, but also the fact that sometimes you won't find your answers in the textbook. You need to really think outside the box. Um, I remember doing my placement and I'd think I'd find my answers in the textbook. It wasn't there. So I'd have to deepen my reflection and understanding. And I think for me, I found it hard to show my emotions, not had a I'd never have come across in my three years of my degree, but having to think, how did I feel emotionally and physically during that situation and actually going to the root of the problem, because I think. Sometimes, if you can just write reflection'oh I've got all these references', but what does it actually mean to you in practice? I think so it's important to show your emotions, even if you feel like, okay, this was a rubbish I didn't do as best as I could, but how can you learn from this situation? Really?

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, it really connecting with yourself as a human and it's where we're part of that relationship and connecting with what you're bringing to that space- that's really important. Georgia!

Georgia Vine:

If I was to do my placement again, I would work on making my social media profile a lot more professional, and look more into marketing. I also want to look into better equipment. For example: a better camera for the webinar to ensure high quality content.

Anna Braunizer:

And Leah.

Leah Holloway:

For me and a lot of people, because we, it was a lot of- there wasn't really a commute. And um, well there wasn't, there wasn't a commute at all. And, um, A lot of the meetings, it's really easy, I think to schedule yourself in. So you're absolutely jam packed, um, and doing more than you would normally, um, you know, you're not sort of getting up and walking to the shops for lunch or, you know, sort of taking a break in between little bits and things. It seems so easy to sit down quite early in the morning and just checking your emails. Um, and then suddenly it's seven o'clock at night and you've not really stopped. So. Um, again, a lot of what everybody else has said, but I don't, I also think I'd prioritize, making sure that I've got sort of regular breaks and I'm not doing more than I should.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah. Balance is important. Those breaks, we need them. Um, yeah, so kind of reflecting on my own practice, I worked a lot of people with mental health conditions or chronic conditions like post-concussion, chronic pain, um, as part of my practice and those can be quite emotional for me. As a therapist, you use yourself and to be really present with people, you feel emotions. And so a big thing for me early on was like, okay, I don't have those drives between clients to process things. I don't like kind of shift gears because like, okay, I need to like at least schedule a 10, 15 minute window just to process and then get ready for the next person. So I can really be there with each of the people I work with. next question. what do you recommend for future students or preceptors considering offering virtual placements?

Rachel Hepton:

Okay. So, um, Like what Leah said. I know that I found it very easy to go way over hours per day and like get if you're getting up early anyway, it's so easy to just start like doing too much and, uh, booking yourself back to back because you always think, Oh, everyone else is busy. I'm not as busy. I'll just slot every all meetings in wherever I can. And you end up with. Crazy 12 hour days with back to back, back to back meetings. Um, so I think, and for me as well, I had a lot of meetings that were sort of almost random, so I could see one person and then I'd see some, someone completely different and then I'd see some to be doing something else completely different. So I think having some, um, regular meetings, like in the social prescribing service, they had a team meeting. Every week to like review the caseload. And I also went to all of the neighborhood team meetings as well, which was the same time every week. Um, and it really helps like structure and ground you like in a particular time during the week. So you can kind of judge the passing of time, like Leah said earlier, like the time just flew by. I mean, we were both on placement for six weeks and it really went very fast. Um, and sometimes the days felt the same. Like it was the same thing each day. And you couldn't even tell, like, what was the weekend? What was the week? Even though we weren't supposed to be working the weekend, we'd be working weekends anyway. Um, so yeah, I think if I was going to advise any students, I'd say, try and have a few regular meetings that are the same time every week and make sure you take breaks and try to have your weekends off. That would be it. Yeah,

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, having those boundaries in place. Like we need those as much as our clients need them when we're working on things. Melissa?

Melissa Chieza:

Um, I think for me, um, I actually did this tour as the last six out of 10 week of my place. And I think for me, it was important to get some exercise in every day of the week, whether it's the morning or the end of the day, you have some exercise. Um, just so you like not, you don't spend so much time on your screen. Um, I'm guilty. What Rachel said, continue sounding nine, 12, and end up being like six to a nine or something. Um, but they make sure you take quite a bit of time. Like even in the morning, just a short walk before you start or short walk in the end is they just to clear your head. Um, I think you need time to orientate yourself because a virtual placement is different, um, yes, you have people around you, but you have to like, I don't know, depending on how your learning style is. Say, for example, say if you're someone who's dyslexic, you may find it better to ring someone and discuss like, okay, I wanted to talk to about this, but maybe writing's difficult. So maybe you find verbal communication better than written. So find your learning style, I think is quite important. Then the third thing I would be saying is reflection. If your week hasn't gone so well, maybe at the end of the week, you could say,'okay, it hasn't gone well, what can I, why is it not going well, what can I do next week?' And'how am I going to improve?' And then you just use those milestones. Okay. This can be in a way an analysis to see,'okay, this wasn't so well this week, maybe I need to ask my supervisor, like, um, for instance, cause my supervisor, one of the sessions, we did like a modeling of role-playing, which is quite good for people with dyslexia'. And we modeled a bit of like an OT process assessment over the telephone because things like the, the okay some questions. I think.'Why is that?' What's your routine- obviously with COVID, people really don't have a routine. So we adapt the question. So I think like, things like that, it's good. If you can model with your supervisor or do some form of role play. I know it's not the same, cause you're not together, but to think about learning styles and how can you adapt it with this virtual working. Yeah. One of the things I always ask students before they're with me, I'm like, what's your learning style because then I can really also tailor the tools to the students in how we structure the placement. All right, Georgia.

Georgia Vine:

I recommend that students go ahead was it takes a lot more skirting up than a traditional placement. I also recommend that if your online profile and social media platforms are a big part of your placement, then keep track of them and measure statistics to make sure that what you are doing is having an impact. I also agree with getting the balance right. I often found myself responding to emails on weekends, so yeah. Make sure you find the correct balance.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, balance is key. What about you, Leah?

Leah Holloway:

Um, again, I think just sort of echoing what Rachel, Melissa and Georgia said. Um, I think it's really important to check what sort of learning style you are, whether that's student or an educator, um, because you know, learning, it should be a two way street. Um, Rachel and I, we go to the same university, University of Lincoln. I might be wrong, other universities might do it different than our university, um, has weekly supervisions, which I found really beneficial. Um, cause every single week you got to reflect on what you did, sort of give yourself some credit for everything you'd achieved in that week, because I think it can be really difficult to sort of not give yourself the credit that you deserve, um, and reflect to see how you can tailor it better to your learning style. Um, if there's anything that went really well and you want to do again or anything you want to change, um, I think that's really important. And then just making sure that you are getting that balance because you know, you don't want to burn yourself out.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, I think that's really cool. Um, we don't have that in Canada or at least we didn't have it at my university, but like a way that's. So maybe I'm, I'm making sure I'm hearing this correctly, like students from all different placements, you kind of come together and share your learnings?

Leah Holloway:

Um, that's so that's not what I meant, but, um, I know that there are, so I think the Elizabeth Casson trust. I'm not involved in it, but I have seen it on Twitter. Um, they have funded this a little, just a little plug for something that I don't know loads about, but it looks really good. It's for newly qualified OTs. Um, that's sort of it, a big meeting for occupational therapists all across the country to reflect on their practice and almost, from what I've read, it looks like a support group. And hopefully, when I get my pin, I'm hoping to be able to join that. Um, but then they're using Twitter because there were a lot of people on Twitter that you can reflect with. Um, and I know sort of Facebook, social media, things like that. There's, there's a lot of opportunities there where you can. Contact other students in that from different countries and different universities. Um, so I definitely think that is something that would be better or it could be beneficial. Um, and so then that could be set up.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, I think that'd be really cool. That's just my personal perspective. And like, just having those reflection times and kind of sharing learnings. Cause we don't ask students. Like we, when we, when I, I was recently a student, like two years ago, we don't get to experience every practice area. It could be ways to maybe learn about things that are going on. So if you don't have a direct clinical experience, there's like, you can still learn a little bit about that practice area from the fellow students' perspectives and get some like, and really like, kind of share your learning together because it can be, it could be really like community of learning and you're right. Like we do have communities of learning through like,#OTalk and different groups on Facebook and social media. Um, where we share knowledge and come together, and that has happened. I find more in COVID. Um, one of the OT groups I'm in is pain OT, and we have at the start of COVID, we had virtual happy hours every week where we'd share learnings and share research and knowledge, and it was just really fun. And I think the more bridges we can build there as a profession, I think will help with our growth.

Track 3:

Yeah, Anna, can I add something on top of that? And so, but like shared learning, um, me lightly, I said we're at the same university and me and Leah also run the University of Lincoln society. So throughout our virtual placements, we, um, kind of set up like a weekly chat for all of our cohort to have, and we are the. We're the first, um, occupational therapy students like educated at the University of Lincoln. So we're the first cohort. Yeah, there's no, there's no like years above us for us to talk to you. So we're really, really tight knit and, um, it's a very small MSc course, so there's only 13 of us on the entire course. And. Because we've sort of got, it's kind of been like a journey together since it's a brand new course and we're the first ones doing it. So we've become like a really tight-knit course. And I think, even during COVID and lockdown and everything, we've been like really close and we've had absolutely loads of virtual meetings and things like that. I know on my virtual placement, we were having meetings. I was having meetings with, um, another student. And in fact, three other students on social prescribing role-emerging placements as well. Um, and we were having those meetings like every week. So yeah, peer support is something that like, we really value and we lean on each other a lot, I think.

Track 2:

Yeah, that's really cool. I, yeah, it's like, it's just way we can all learn and like celebrate our, what we do and get excited and get pumped about OT. how do you think virtual placements can contribute to the growth of the occupational therapy profession?

Rachel Hepton:

Um, okay, so that's me again. And so being virtual for our placement, um, it meant that we could be in a service that wouldn't normally be able to offer a placement, which I think is really good. You get like a really unique experience that you would not be able to have, um, if virtual placements weren't an option. And because our placements, we were supposed to go straight after Easter this year. And because of the lockdown in the UK, the, when the timing of that, and we all had our placements canceled. And then, um, We had our course moved around a bit. So we had like academic work pulled forwards and placements pushed back. And, um, for within the social prescribing service that I was in, they, they counted as office workers. So because of the government guidelines, office workers were told to work from home, and if that was an option and it was an option for the social prescribers. So, uh, we were kind of unexpectedly put on a virtual placement. I didn't know my placement was going to be virtual until I was doing it, but I wouldn't have been able to do that placement at all this year if virtual placements weren't an option. So I think it's good.

Melissa Chieza:

I think for me initially, same thing, my final, I went out on placement two weeks in March, then I entered shielding then had to stay inside. It was after I attended, webinars through Georgia Vine and Margaret Spencer, the idea of looking for a virtual placement came around. I think it took me three attempts before I actually found a supervisor that was willing to take me. But I think for me, I think it's been accessibility and disclosure because I think looking back at it now, if I didn't get the virtual placement, I think there'd have been other factors that I would have found it hard to do a traditional placement, but also I think the fact that OT was sort of like stepping into a new world of virtual, although there's still things we can not really assess virtually, but it may be the new norm for OT. Like we can still build a therapeutic relationship. Yes. There's issues, but you can still interact with your clients via the internet. Like you can still do interventions. You can still carry out assessments virtually, but I think it's just the beginning of OT.

Anna Braunizer:

And Georgia?

Georgia Vine:

The virtual placements can contribute to the growth of the profession because they are a lot more accessible for disabled people, especially with the current climate. Therefore, more disabled people might be interested in the profession. I also feel like a virtual placement contributes a lot to the profession because it raises the profile of online healthcare and how important it is even without the pandemic. For example, some disabled people find it difficult to leave the house even without the new restrictions. So therefore it can be really beneficial. Yeah. And, um, during my placement, what we did about online healthcare and lots of people from like different countries. I knew well like I just think it's really important because not everyone can leave the house like before. Okay. We do. Yeah. It's really important to me to do it and contribute a lot of evidence and my blog on online communities and like people are reaching out on Twitter and they still don't really get where I'm coming from. Yeah.

Anna Braunizer:

I agree Georgia, online communities just have so much value. And I think that the rest of the world is like, we're all kind of like really connecting to that now. And I think it's really online communities in general, just contributing to the growth of our profession and... so many more communities have popped up-kind of what we're talking about with learning and sharing knowledge- it had just popped up with COVID- and are more active during this time

Leah Holloway:

so like Rachel, um, my virtual placement wasn't even really thought about until. You know, sort of COVID happened. Um, I originally was supposed to do my role emerging placement with a charity, um, sort of face-to-face. And that was before this had even sort of been considered, um, sorry to spring it on you, Georgia,but umm I saw you on Twitter and am I right in thinking that you had a virtual placement? Before or you sort of come up with the idea of a virtual placement before COVID had even.

Georgia Vine:

Yeah. You see we got an idea for a virtual placement in like April, 2019. We got the idea and then we probably planned it like September time. So I would say that I was already halfway through mine before the rest of the world did them too.

Leah Holloway:

Yeah, I guess, so this is going to sound really strange, but I saw you on Twitter and I sort of saw your blog and I thought it sounded like such a great idea. Um, a virtual placement. And I remember speaking to my supervisor, Julie, um, and just saying how cool a virtual placement sounded and how it was almost as if we were living in the future and how, like Georgia said how accessible virtual OT would be. Um, and I remember me and Julie just sort of sat chatting for 20 minutes about how cool this idea would be. Um, and then March happened and that became everybody's reality. Um, and I feel as though there's just so many great things, like Georgia and Melissa and Rachel have said, that we can take from virtual working and that when things go back to something, you know, a little bit more like what we used to recognize and, um, more maybe office space, if it does. I don't want to suggest anything. Nobody knows what's happening anymore. And I really do hope that virtual placement is something that, or, virtual working is something that carries on because, um, my placement wouldn't have happened, um, if it wasn't. So the fact that we could do it online, either one of the last things that I spoke about with my sort of onsite supervisor public health, England is how this was only possible because of, because of COVID and because of, um, the internet and things being virtual. And I just think sort of going back to what I said before, the ability to connect with other people, it's just so much easier when everybody's online. Um, you know, in a strange way, there's, it's just so much more easier to network, I think. Um, so yeah.

Anna Braunizer:

Oh, yeah. I definitely agree it's so much easier way easier to network. Our next question is kind of like the last one. Some of you have touched on it already, but how do you think virtual placements can contribute to occupational justice and increase diversity within the occupational therapy profession?

Rachel Hepton:

so I think for the virtual placement, one of the things that I was that I enjoyed about it erm was that I didn't have so many worries, um, going into it as I often do on other placements. So I didn't have to worry about like physical challenges of a virtual placement, because I was always comfortable in my home and I knew that I could. Like you have a rest if I need to, or I could get up and walk around if I need to. Um, and I think on, especially on, um, acute hospital placements and things like that, we know they're so busy, you never get a rest. Um, and that's always, um, that's kind of a worry for me. Um, I know it isn't for some people, but, um, that kind of thing, um, the, the physical demands of placements can be really challenging. And I think I'm probably not the best person to answer. Fully the question, but, um, like Georgia was saying earlier, particularly it can be much better for people with certain disabilities, if that's going to help you to be on a virtual placement and you can still, you can make so much difference to patients and to like your clients' lives, um, over virtual placements, like you don't necessarily have to be somewhere to be making a difference for people. And I think that's like really important to not think that a virtual placement is less. Than a face-to-face placement because he's still doing good, which is important to remember as a student.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, I think it's like it's given us a chance to really embrace all the different ways that we can do occupational therapy. Melissa.

Melissa Chieza:

um, I think virtual placement has contributed quite a lot to me mentally and physically. Um, I'd say mentally, obviously I've had to think more about the process of things as I would, if I. I still think about it more in a traditional environment, but virtually, obviously there's no research. There's not much research that has been done within OT and virtual. It's more psychotherapy. Um, psychologists, there's not much in OT literature, but I think, um,it's the start of something. I feel like it's the start of OT. Like something's going to happen next years. Um, I think mentally it hasn't been as challenging as a, um, traditional placement. And I think, I haven't felt as fatigued as much due to the commute. I think for me, um, cause I'm a type one diabetic, I think for me, it's been a lot easier to notice what my blood sugars are like from home. Then I would be fine commuting. Um, they're all sporadic, like. You don't know, my Monday to Saturday.SO I think for my, for me, it's been okay to know my routine. I have a stable routine, 9:00 AM I'm on at my desk; at 12 o'clock, I'm having my lunch; the routine doesn't change. Um, but it makes me wonder why are virtual placements not offered to students with disabilities, but those that don't have it like, um, I think there was a week, we had a plumber in and trying to maintain confidentiality in other aspects of it during this lockdown. So I think it's things like that. You have to be mindful, but you can, you can make adjustments to it. I think it's just the fact that, although it's still at the very early stage, I think people need to know more about it. Then students can be offered placements. But I think they shouldn't just be told, Oh no, you can't do it. I think they should be given that choice. I think in a way. Um, in terms of occupational injustice, I think, think about our clients that have been shielding, the over seventies. They're being, there's injustice and alienation society because now they now deconditioning they're. Now they haven't been outside for the last nine months. Now when they have to go out, it's like, how can we get them back out? It's like, you don't have family to support them. It's like, how can you. Get that like a graded approach to get them back outside. Like you, they were going to go, they were going for walks, but they're too anxious to do it. So OT needs to be there to support them with these things. So I think in a way, we still have a lot to contribute to our society.

Georgia Vine:

I think virtual placements contribute to occupational justice, because as previously mentioned, they are more accessible to those who find it easier to work from home. This can then increase diversity as it's a lot more inviting to disabled people as being on a traditional nine to five placement in practice causes a lot of fatigue. Yeah. Um, it really works better with me when we do things as a team like, um, on my placement, I'm like so it was it was very nice. and, um, and because you can be more flexible with the hours, like some mornings, I would be like'oh, I had a bad night's sleep I just need a few more hours in bed and then I can get up and work on it that evening. I wasn't anywhere near as tired Where did that Amy? You know? Oh, I didn't anywhere near as tired. He didn't Yeah.

Leah Holloway:

Um, again, I just feel like I'd echo everything that Rachel, Melissa and Georgia have said. Um, I feel as though it's, it's really beneficial for the students or the sort of educators, if, if they work better from home, um, if it's more accessible for them, but then also, like Melissa said with patients, it's often easier to sort of grade and adapt, um, different occupations for them then. Yeah,

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, I think, yeah, my, my perspective of virtual is like, I think it really allows us to. We really tailor our services to each person and we can really individualize it and make them more like really meet people where they're at even more so than we could in traditional roles with the addition of virtual right. Okay. You like the phone or are you like virtual or do you like in-person, um, let's meet you where you're at, given what we can with public health recommendations. Any last golden nuggets for our listeners, these could be things that we talked about before or things that I didn't ask about, but you think could be important for people to know about virtual placements.

Rachel Hepton:

And...oh... this is a tough question I've been tryna even think of something that goes, and I think. I'll talk a little bit, particularly about my placement, because as I mentioned, it was social prescribing and the whole idea of social prescribing is helping people to access groups and services within their local communities. And the reason our placement was pushed to virtual was because of COVID and all of the restrictions. And then all of these restrictions also apply to all of the groups and services. So that was a real challenge, um, for social prescribing because you can't prescribe somebody to a service that is closed down because of the COVID restrictions. And, but I think if you separate the COVID and the virtual placement, all of the like research and everything I put into my project and the project that I used is, was sort of something for them to use post- COVID anyway. And I would have been able to do that virtual or non-virtual like, regardless of COVID. And so I think that people shouldn't rule out virtual placements, um, if you get offered a virtual placement, I know Melissa said that she chose hers, which is really great, but, um, me and Leah didn't get any choice in our, but we kind of have some choice, but we didn't really get a lot of choice in our placements. So, um, I think if you do get given a virtual placement, don't feel sad and like, think of it as a really great opportunity to use your skills in a different way.

Anna Braunizer:

Melissa?

Melissa Chieza:

Um, I think... the nuggets I'll leave you as the viewers: I think it's important to be open with your supervisor about adjustments you may need. Um, I know it's different to a traditional placement, but I think we need to always, always have your adjustments. Um, just like whether it's, for example, you need bit more time to process the information, need some more time to write your notes. Um, things like that. I think it's just getting you prepared for what's to come when you qualify from student to qualified. Um, OT. I think having that conversation at the beginning is quite important. Um, and even if your adjustments don't work, your supervisor is there to help support you make, make changes to those two adjustments, but just be open and honest at that. Um, the second nugget I'll leave you is preparation really. Cause I think that the virtual placement, we can all say that once you start. By the end of week six or week 10, you're already halfway on that placement. So just being prepared, like making sure you know, what's happening in the week, but also having time to do meaningful occupations that you value as well, because you'll get lost in those and we don't actually have time for them. And the third thing I would just be saying is be kind to yourself. Um, you can forget a lot about that on placement, like we just think,'Oh, I need to work for work', but we don't really think about our body, like when we're being fatigued or who is not hydrated. Think about the things that you do on a placement. Like it's four o'clock, I've not had enough food today. Like the practical things I think is very important.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, we're all human. we need to be kind to ourselves too. Georgia?

Georgia Vine:

I'd Tell future students to be aware of online safety and read all the policies and guidelines, for example, there are both national and international policies about working online. But most importantly, I tell them to make the most of it as this is probably the most independent you will be on a placement. So enjoy the opportunity.

Anna Braunizer:

Right. And Leah.

Leah Holloway:

And again, I feel like they were really, Rachel, Melissa, and Georgia are all really insightful. Um, I think maybe the only other thing that I could add to that. Um, well, again, be really open-minded. So all of my placements up until this one, uh, this virtual one and the one that I'm on now, which isn't virtual. Um, a lot of it, it's all in sort of in-person. Um, and it is quite rehabilitative, reactionary care where with public health, England, um, there was no one particular patient and it was all sort of health protection, um, prevention of health, inequalities, things like that. So I think it just, well, while we did a public health module in our university degree, um, I feel as though it really helped me to put those skills into practice. And while I thoroughly enjoyed the module, I don't think I quite understood just how important those skills are that we learned and ways in which I could put those into practice. So if you get the opportunity to do a placement in public health, it will most likely be virtual from what I understand, and definitely go for it because I think it was really, really beneficial in helping the care that I'll deliver as a practitioner when I'm qualified to be a lot more. Sort of well-rounded if that makes sense.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, that makes sense. I think, um, for me as a practitioner, I'm, I'm quite human with clients. I'd say put it that way. Um, lots of clients call me a very casual professional and I'll like, I'll be pretty open. I'm like, so these tools I'm giving you, like. A lot of the tools. Um, I also work on myself like, yes, I studied them in school, but pacing, planning, like making sure I have breaks- those are things I work on myself. Um, and they're tools that like, it's not just part of the rehab or the recovery, but it's something that you can use. Again, my role, a lot of it is management. So it things you can use for your life moving forward. And, but for, even for people that I work with where it's not just like managing a chronic condition, it's something like you can use these tools to improve your quality of life moving forward. It's not just in the rehab perspective. They can be in the health promotion perspective too. If a lot of people knew all the tools, that'd be great. That's the public health, like getting the public health out there, getting those messages and then putting our OT lens and getting our OT hats into public health would be great. So something we're adding to our podcasts is we're asking all our guests, what's your favorite occupation and why do you love it?

Leah Holloway:

Okay. I think at the moment of my favorite occupation of quite quite taken a fondness to walk in, um, where I live it's there's lots of fields. And during lockdown, when everyone was allowed, one lot of exercise a day, a lot of people are out walking. Um, so it was something that I tried to avoid, but as it's died down a bit again around here, I don't have a dog and I wish I did, but just generally walk in and around the Hills and things it's really relaxing. It gives you a lot of time to think.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, I miss. I was actually born in England. Um, I miss all the fields in the country. Um, my family is from there, Essex and London had the border at the end of the central line. Um, yeah, we always used to wander on the fields.

Rachel Hepton:

My favorite occupation is like outdoor working out and I really enjoy it because it's, it's good for your health and you can progress at it. And I just really enjoy being outside in the fresh air.

Anna Braunizer:

Okay, Melissa, what's one of your favorite occupations?

Melissa Chieza:

Okay. So my favorite occupation, I think the last few months has for me, has been baking during the lockdown. Um, just trying out new recipes and seeing how it works with my family, because I always see like the taste, the textures, and just seeing that activity matters in occupational therapy works well. Um, something else I like is exercise. I think I did that quite a bit in the lockdown. So I think that was two occupations. I like to Georgia?

Georgia Vine:

This is a hard question, but I have to say that my favorite occupation is writing a blog. I just really get lost when I'm writing, because I feel so passionate about what I write.

Anna Braunizer:

Yeah, I love reading your blog, Georgia

Georgia Vine:

thank you.

Anna Braunizer:

well thank you all. It was really nice to meet you.

Amelia Fletcher:

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