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This article focused on the importance of having your heart, mind, and soul behind you and your profession in order to present professionalism within the occupational therapy field. The heart of professionalism in occupational therapy, focuses on doing Good Work and/or ensuring that what we are doing is right for us as well as improving another's life. The mind of professionalism in occupational therapy, this idea is centered around working to broaden the scope of knowledge within occupational therapy as well as providing EVP to your clients because they deserve more than the routine BUE exercises. Lastly, the soul of professionalism within occupational therapy, this involves collaborating with other individuals within the profession, critically evaluating, and brainstorming to ensure that the highest standard of practice is being used within the clinics. These three components are interwoven. Therefore, if one piece, the heart, mind, or soul is missing then the level of professionalism you portray decreases.

As we engage our hearts to do Good Work, strive to nourish our minds, and to cultivate the authenticity of our souls we can help make the field of occupational therapy stand out and be a pillar of professionalism. Wendy Wood's article is inspiring and is a good read to give you a little boost.

The author's purpose of this article was to promote professionalism as heart, mind, and soul at all level so that all we do in the name of occupational therapy not only remains right for ourselves and good for the world, but also grows more so over time. He described professionalism as especially important for the well-being of individuals or of society at large, having a value so special that money cannot serve as its sole measure: it is also simply good work. The author was captured by the magic of occupational therapy as a counselor at a summer camp for autistic children, which was a truly inspiring story about how he fell in love with the profession. He emphasized how personal professionalism is; so personal, in fact, that he uses the metaphors of heart, mind, and soul to depict its most vital elements. Any field claiming professional stature must be just as dedicated to cultivating its mind as it is to nourishing its heart, as the two are wonderfully symbiotic. I loved this article, and it truly depicted the meaning of and what it means to be an occupational therapist at a personal level.

Guidelines to the Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics This is a really handy resource that provides a quick glance at the different elements of the Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics. It lists ten sections of professional behaviors under the code of ethics and each have a subset of behaviors which are appropriate under that section. The first professional behavior listed is honesty. "Professionals must be honest with themselves, must be honest with all whom they come in contact with, and must know their strengths and limitations" (AOTA, 2005). The second behavior listed is communication. "Communication is important in all aspects of occupational therapy. Individuals must be conscientious and truthful in all facets of written, verbal, and electronic communication" (AOTA, 2005). The third area of professional behavior is ensuring the common good. "Occupational therapy personnel are expected to increase awareness of the profession's social responsibilities to help ensure the common good" (AOTA, 2005). The fourth professional behavior is competence. "Occupational therapy personnel are expected to work within their areas of competence and to pursue opportunities to update, increase, and expand their competence" (AOTA, 2005). The fifth area of professional behavior is confidential and protected information. "Information that is confidential must remain confidential. This information cannot be shared verbally, electronically, or in writing without appropriate consent. Information must be shared on a need-to-know basis only with those having primary responsibilities for decision making" (AOTA, 2005). The sixth professional behavior area is conflict of interest. "Avoidance of real or perceived conflict of interest is imperative to maintaining the integrity of interactions" (AOTA, 2005). The seventh professional behavior area is impaired practitioner. "Occupational therapy personnel who cannot competently perform their duties after reasonable accommodati

This assessment is based on observation of a patient in a more natural environment/setting and looks at if they initiate expected activities such as, turning off appliances, closing doors when they leave, doing dishes, prepping dinner.. etc within 15 min of expected time. This is looked at and recorded each day of the week. In acute care this is just not very applicable, as we don't watch patients all day, every day of the week and the Vets are in an unfamiliar setting where they likely won't initiate such activities even if cognition is unimpaired. Even the activities that do occur in the hospital setting, such as eating lunch, don't apply very well because the score is acquired by adding up how they did each day of the week and it is not very practical to see a patient every day for the entirety of their lunch for a week straight. This may be a nice assessment for the nursing home to use in some instances.

This article is an example of what one would use if searching for evidenced based practice methods. My current fieldwork experience is in a skilled nursing facility and we frequently use the e-stim for strengthening and pain. Therefore for an article on evidence based practice i decided to search for an evidence based article that would prove what we are doing with the e-stim machine is beneficial. The article is a literature review and seeks to gather the evidence for e-stim and muscle strengthening. The results say that theoretically the e-stim is a complimentary tool for muscle strengthening. However, the e-stim still has little evidence for muscle strengthening and does not show that it is any better than traditional strengthening methods.

This exert is specifically from the VA handbook in regards to supervision specifically for health professionals and trainees. This resource provides a strict breakdown of the supervision requirements for supervisors and trainees. It is clear through this policy that strict guidelines are to be followed within this system and this is what I have experienced in my time there. I was intrigued however, that supervisory roles are seen as an educational experience. The following tenet was the first under supervisor regulation--" Supervision is an educational experience provided by a qualified supervising practitioner with a trainee. This relationship is evaluative, extends over time, and has the simultaneous purposes of enhancing the professional functioning of the trainee while monitoring the quality of services delivered. Supervision is provided through observation, consultation, directing the learning and activities of the trainee, and role modeling". I feel that this really stressing the educational importance of being a supervisor.

This is a pdf that explains evidence based practice in general terms and how it applies to occupational therapy. This certainly would provide a good basis for us as we are currently applying what we learned in our coursework to our clinical experiences. In today's healthcare market, there truly is a demand for evidence-based practice to justify reimbursement.

This resource defines evidence-based practice, why it is important within the healthcare arena, and the process of integrating evidence into everyday practice. According to Sackett et al. (1996), evidence-based practice is best defined as "the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients". Individuals often mistake evidence-based practice as utilizing results from studies to guide treatment. However, evidence-based practice is more of an integration between client expertise, best available research evidence, and the patients' preferences and therapy goals. Through the use of evidence-based practice occupational therapy practitioners can better meet the needs of their patients.

This is a power point presentation by Sally Bennett, from the Division of Occupational Therapy School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Queensland Australia. The power point is an introduction to evidence-based practice in occupational therapy. The presentation provides a definition of evidence-based practice, why EBP is important, the process of EBP, how EBP has changed delivery of health care delivery, and why it is important to occupational therapy.

This paper strives for a greater understanding of how professionalism is currently conceptualised within Western occupational therapy literature. The article explains how an understanding of professionalism is commonly assumed rather than clearly explained. Thus, explicit description and examination of this complex concept is often over- looked. It should be noted that the concept of professionalism is solely being examined through a Western cultural lens.

Individuals experiencing mental health disorders are susceptible to impairments in occupational functioning due to decreased concentration, memory, thought processes, insight, judgement, decision-making, reality orientation, regulating emotions, understanding perception, motivation, and psycho-motor activity. This is a quantitative study out of the South American Journal of Occupation Therapy that studied the effects of slow vs. fast tempo of music on symptoms of psychosis during occupation. There were 160 individuals with diagnosed psychological disorders in a psych hospital in South Africa. The subjects participated in a leatherwork activity while listening to either fast paced/upbeat music or low tempo/slow music. Attention/focus, ability to follow instructions, directedness towards the activity, and motivation were measured in groups of individuals who had psycho-motor agitation or psycho-motor inhibition psychosis. The study found that listening to music during an activity has the ability to improve all three variables in both agitation and inhibited-motor psychosis. Fast-paced tempo significantly improves attention in individuals with inhibited motor-psychosis. The ability to follow instructions improved in both fast and slow tempo music for both agitated and inhibited individuals. Directedness and motivation did not significantly improve in any of the groups. This study indicates that music can improve the ability to perform occupations and activities in individuals with mental health disorders. Music is very individualized and it may be difficult for OT practitioners to work with groups of individuals when introducing music. IT is important for an OT to gather a good understanding of a patient's preferences and determine if they would be a good candidate for the use of music during therapy. More research is recommended in this area to further determine the effects of music on occupation in this population.

This is a forum entry about implementing evidence-based practice within the VA. I found this interesting since evidence-based practice is something that not all OT's follow but we learn a lot about in school. The article talks about how some believe in evidence and some believe in clinical experience. This is probably an issue that will always be around, but reading different points of view is always helpful as we become OT's.

This article discusses the importance of clinical reasoning in a time when evidence-based practice is becoming more prevalent. It is stressed that clinical reasoning is so important because randomized clinical trials can still be incomplete and hard to generalize. Clinical reasoning is vital to incorporate with randomized clinical trials to meet the responsibilities that the patients have entrusted in their health care professionals.

Clinical Reasoning: This article looks at the issue of polypharmacy in middle age and elderly adults. The researchers assessed the prevalence of falls the participants experienced versus the number and type of medications they were taking. They concluded fall risk is associated with polypharmacy, but only when at least one drug had a side effect/increased the risk of falling. I chose this article because the majority of my patients I have seen are on multiple medications and most have a history of falls. For example I had a patient today who came in with multiple falls and dizziness, which the doctors believe is due to the number of medications she is taking and they counteract with one another. I feel from a therapy perspective it is part of our job to tease out whether the falls could be due to multiple medications or if there is another reason for the falls. This is where fall prevention is also very important to ensure their safety.