Shaping the Way of Occupational Therapy

             As a young graduate student of occupational therapy, I have spent a great deal of time researching what occupational therapy is and how it is used. When I was trying to decide what career path to take I was constantly googling different occupational therapy clinics and shadowing practitioners. It was not until recently that I realized in all my research I was only looking at occupational therapy the way it is right now and knew nothing about the past. Recently I was shadowing an older occupational therapist and she mentioned to me that she only had a bachelors degree and I could not believe it. I must have just assumed that it was always a masters degree. This is why when the 90's group was giving their presentation the fact that it was not until 1999 that a post-baccalaureate entry was established and until 2007 that all school must be in compliance stood out to me. For only a little over 10 years has this been a requirement, meaning that many of the occupational therapists my class will learn under, train with, and even work with one day went through a different system of education. While I am a little jealous that I could be an occupational therapist right now if I could just use my bachelors degree, I am proud of the somewhat recent growth our field has made. I believe this shows a desire for an abundance of knowledge before going in to the field. Along with this fact from the 90's, I learned from the 2000's group that occupational therapists with a bachelors degree could be grandfathered in and not have to seek out more education. This stood out to me for two reasons. First, I was wondering from the previous presentation what happened to those with their bachelors when the new rule came out. Second, it made me feel a sense of relief as a current hot topic in our field is whether or not the masters programs should become all doctorate programs. Seeing the history that those with bachelors degrees were still respected and taken care of during the change to masters makes me feel confident that if one day we switch to a doctorate I will be grandfathered in. Lastly, sticking with the theme of educational facts, I was highly surprised to learn that in 1943 occupational therapists were needed so badly that they established War Emergency Courses in an effort to get people trained in only two weeks. I wonder what all these people could have learned in only two weeks seeing as that in my first two weeks of occupational therapy school all I had time to learn was only at the surface of what occupational therapy is and the back muscles. This shows just how valuable occupational therapy can be, especially to war veterans.