The Memory Unit OT

Like occupational therapy for a career choice, a skilled nursing facility (SNF) was not my first practice setting choice.

If you caught last week’s post, I shared about how my original plan was to teach preschoolers. And after shifting to occupational therapy, working as a pediatric therapist was certainly on my mind.

But the funny thing about OT School is you can get a little excited about a lot of different practice settings and client populations.

After completing my first Level 2 placement in an outpatient setting, I was super excited about hand therapy. My pediatrics courses made me want to shift away from working with kids. And there was a brief period where I thought working in oncology would be unique and interesting.

Skilled Nursing was never really on my mind.

My first Level 1 occurred over Spring Break at a SNF. And while I was exposed to a ton, and did get excited about certain therapy interventions and techniques, I also saw a lot of upsetting scenes.

I remember walking into a patient room with the therapist, and the woman residing in that room had a large wound on her leg that wasn’t bandaged appropriately. Blood was just dripping onto the floor underneath her. There were also several Residents on therapy program who really were at end-of-life. And while I know now that occupational therapy can still be of benefit during end-of-life care (for comfort, and positioning, and sensory regulation) the care plans for these particular Residents were very “traditional therapy” and not at all anything they could tolerate.

On top of all that, I was intimidated to really talk with my supervising therapist. I was so new to the inpatient world that when she would ask me about intervention ideas, I literally had no clue what to say or suggest.

She’d be like “Okay so if you were the therapist, what would you do with this patient?”. And inside I’m thinking “I literally am not supposed to know that yet. That’s why I’m shadowing you”.

Overwhelming.

But okay, let’s get into the actual good part of this story.

So that first Level 1 was in the Spring, right? And it was through one of the major Rehab Companies in the US. That summer I receive an email from that Rehab Company, which was essentially a recruiting email: “Here are some OT jobs in your area…”

It honestly read like a mass email. Like I’m just a number in a long list of contacts who received this same sort of email.

But I decided to reply.

At this point, I still had 2 years of school left. Plus studying for and passing my NBCOT Exam. So I kindly share that in the email, along with my interest in being contacted with job opportunities when the time came.

Within the hour I get an email back: “Yes of course! I’ll file you under my 2017 grads. Where are you looking for? Do you want to stay in New England after graduation or are you headed somewhere else?”

As a little student with no understanding of these big companies with big HR departments, I was shocked.

So I reply again, sharing my plans to move back to New Hampshire post-graduation, and my life moves on.

Flash forward to the semester before graduation.

I’m living in Maine. I’m wrapping up my last 12-week clinical. I’m in the Sam’s Club parking lot about to head inside. My mom calls me all excited, telling me someone just called the landline at my parents house regarding a potential Occupational Therapy job. And it was (naturally) from a recruiter working for that Rehab Company that emailed me after my first Level 1.

My mom texts me the contact info, I grab my groceries, and I give the number a call when I get back to my apartment. I’m sent to voicemail and leave a message expressing my interest and my personal phone number (so they don’t call my parents back instead of me).

Now this is where God did a work.

Several days go by, and I hear nothing. So I’m like “Okay. That’s fine. It was a long-shot.” I’m working out a time to try and call again during business hours, but not during my shift on clinical. And I get a text message from this recruiter. She’s like, “I’ve been trying to call you but your voicemail system doesn’t seem to be working so I figured I’d text you”. Which was strange because I’d been getting calls from friends and family, with no record of missed calls from anyone else.

She tells me about a job in the town right next door to my parents’ house (where I was planning to move back to after graduation). The facility initially had the job posted for a COTA but the Rehab Director was willing to hire a new grad OTR instead if one came along.

I tell her that I’m currently in Maine wrapping up my semester, but I’ll be home for a few weeks in April. We schedule an interview, and that was the end of the call.

Walking into that interview, I didn’t really feel nervous.

From my perspective, there had to be so many other therapists more qualified than me. I still had months to go before I would even be ready to start. So in my mind, this was just a practice interview to gear me up for the real job search.

I interviewed with the Rehab Director (a PTA) and the other OT on staff. No one gave me any real indication of how they felt about me. There was no “we’ll be in touch” vibe upon leaving.

So I drive home thinking, “Okay, I did my first interview. It’s out of the way and I can move on to the next”.

I get home and naturally my mom wants to hear all about it. I’m mid-conversation with her, literally talking about that interview, and my phone rings. And it’s that same recruiter.

I answer the phone and the first thing she says is “Well how did it go?”. And I’m not about to tell her everything that I’ve just told you, you know about it being a practice interview and feeling unqualified and all that. So I share some professional answer.

She replies, “Well they really enjoyed the interview and would like to offer you the job”.

I’m pretty sure that’s the point where I blacked out.

She starts writtling off all this information about pay and benefits and I just can’t even think straight. I’m mouthing to my mom “I got the job!!” and she’s running to grab me pen and paper. I get my bearings enough to actually take notes so I can process what the heck this recruiter is telling me.

And then I start to doubt.

“This is my first interview.” “What’s the protocol in this situation?” “Is this what I want?” “If I say no to this, will I even get another job?”

I just felt like I needed to pause before I gave her an answer. And that’s exactly what I told her.

As I’m writing this out now, I’m remembering that it was Easter weekend 2017. My interview was the Thursday before Easter. I asked the recruiter if I could call her the next day, but because she had Good Friday off she told me to call her on Monday.

So I celebrated Easter weekend with my family, and called her on Monday to accept the job.

It was the best first job. God gave me an absolute gift by giving me that job and those therapists to work with as a new grad.

And here I am now, loving the SNF setting and advocating for it’s value. You just never know where you’ll end up, and I’m so glad that this is my story.