OT world, UK style

Believe it or not, my sneakers are still sopping wet from yesterday. And unfortunately, I didn't think to pull my orthotics out of them until I got home from work today- doh! I think they'll be alright though.

So I had a meeting with the Head OT yesterday, to discuss my lack of work at the day hospital, and that I don't like doing this kind of OT. It was apparently not an option to have me doing 1 or 2 days a week in a different setting, so instead I have been designated to Jodie to help her out doing the same kind of OT work I'm doing now, on an acute care of the elderly ward. Jodie, thankfully, is incredibly sweet, and totally flexible, so that should the sky fall down and the day hospital actually becomes busy, I can hand work back to her. So I'm still doing pseudo-OT work as I've decided to call it, but it does make the afternoon go by much quicker when you're busy. And thank goodness Jodie is more than happy to help me figure out how the system works, so that I can designate tasks to the OTAs that I can't do myself, since for all intents and purposes I am still assigned to the day hospital.

Now for the bad news...there is a more than fair chance I will not get the stroke unit for my next rotation. There are at least two people who put it down last time and did not get it, and unless they've changed their minds, they are likely to put it down again this time. And even though I've practically beaten it over Barbara's head that I am here to learn about working with stroke patients, she has always run a fair system, and is not going to change that just for me. We will find out a month ahead of time what our next rotation will be, at which point I may well have a very hard decision to make. In discussing this turn of events with coworkers, we talked about how most Australians, South Africans, and Americans come over here because they want to travel, and it just so happens that they can do so while working as an OT. And yes, I'm a travel nut, but I had as much if not more professional reason to come over here, in that I wanted to learn from people who have years of experience working with stroke patients. I can take courses and read books in the US...I wanted a mentor to help me shape my skills working with stroke patients. There's nothing to do about it now, no point in counting chickens before they're hatched, but needless to say, my meeting yesterday wasn't exactly encouraging.