Remembering my first scientific article

March 16, 2012.

It's 6:12 am, and while I make a list of about 15 references for an assignment I'm laughing remembering the first scientific article I had to read and summarize. It was on my first year of my baccalaureate in the Introduction to Biomedical Sciences class.  I remember that when they explained that part of the assignment I didn't even know what a scientific article was! The professor made us chose from several articles and I didn't have a clue of what I was doing. When I came to do the reference list it was a disaster! All those weird names and little numbers on the top of the names.....I had no idea where they came from!

It has already been 5 years, and I have already lost count of all of the scientific articles I have read, summarized and analyzed.  From hating them to death, in some point at the end of my BS I started to like them, and I even started searching in data bases for fun (yes, that worried me a little haha). But today, I want to thank my past professors, particularly the one from the Introduction to Biomedical Sciences class for introducing me to my first scientific article. 

Lesson # 1: Go back to yourself

My first reading assigned as an OT student was “Basic Awareness of Self” from Carol M. Davis. As I mentioned before, my previous studies had been in Biomedical Sciences and although I learned a lot, self-awareness wasn't one of the topics in the syllabus. In my years of High School, I did  read a lot about those topics since I enjoyed self'-help and Christian books which helped me get to know myself better and get out successfully of that identity crisis that all adolescents go through. However, self-reflection was something I had neglected while submerged in carbon molecules, cells and their receptors. Talking again about those topics was like dusting off an old book.

 I remember that the reading talked about the persona, the ego, the shadow and the self. It said that the persona was that mask that we put for society, the ego was what told us what was right and what was wrong and kept our feet on the ground; although sometimes the reality that the ego told us about ourselves was distortional and made us believe we were better or worse based on what people said. The shadow was the part that no one knew about us, and that sometimes came out unexpectedly.  Finally, the self, that was what made us unique (God, for others the "energy" within us, the connection with truth) lied beneath all those layers and it would only come out once we learn to accept ourselves just the way we are.The author tells us that since we are born, we have that connection with our true self, but when we start learning the rules of society, we start becoming more like others want us to be than what we really are. We act in the way that we think will bring us love and recognition, but deeply we know that the persona is only a mask.

I think it's important to follow the rules of society to be able to interact successfully with other people but, at the same time, I think that unconsciously we care too much about what others think about us.  That first day of class I learned (and I'm still trying to apply it to my life) that I shouldn't hide my personality or my opinions to please others. I need to worry about accepting myself first. Only that way, when I learn to respect my true self, the rest will do the same. All this relates to Occupational Therapy because only from the true self is that we can give the best care to our patients. If we live from the outside, we can take the risk of using our patients to satisfy our personals need for love and recognition, which is not ok.

“We all have the desire to be recognized  by what we are,  not by what we think others want us to be. Free from the need to be right, and the fear to be wrong"

-Carol M. Davis
 

The reading warns us that achieving this takes hard work, suffering and compromise. However, starting this journey also lifts a weight out of your shoulders. Thanks to that reflection, I have started to realize that if someone treats me badly, or doesn't accept me, it's probably not my fault.  Maybe that person is living from her/his outer emotions instead of living from her/his true self. The same thing happens when I have a hard time accepting someone else's personality. Now I can analyze if the real problem is my attitude that needs to change. It's difficult to apply this to everyday life, because our ego constantly tells us who we are based on the critics or compliments we get from others. I think that getting to the real self is an effort that lasts a lifetime. The important thing is: it's worth it.

The gain of a friend

What's left of my gift 

I want to make a stop to talk about the little chocolate interchange that my OT class group decided to make for Valentine's day. It was something really sweet, since we decided that along with the chocolates we will give our secret friend a little card or something with the positive attributes of that person. My secret friend got me 6 strawberries with chocolate and 5 kisses and in each one she put a positive characteristic about me. Some of them where: leader, responsible, creative and perseverant.We had a lot of fun at a local pizza place interchanging the chocolates and the cards that, by the way, were VERY creative! Besides the strawberries and kisses my fried gave me this quote which I would like to share:

"Each new friend that we gain in the race of life improves us and enriches us more because of what he discovers about ourselfs, that what he gives us about himself"-A.R.

Not as easy as I thought

Well, you already know the nice feelings I had (and still have) when I started as an Occupational Therapy student. However, there is no rose without thorns. During my first week, I also received a big shock when I found out that in only one day of classes I had 7 chapters assigned! Although I can’t deny I enjoyed some of them, like the ones about professional development and fundamentals of OT, I can’t say the same about the first 3 chapters of Human Anatomy.

For some reason, before starting OT school I had my “self-efficacy” levels a bit unreal and thought that if I had graduated with honors from my Bachelor’s in Biomedical Sciences; having passed classes like Organic Chemistry, Cell Biology and Virology; Occupational Therapy wouldn’t be a great challenge. I definitely underestimated the program, but never the profession. It is unfortunate that many people think Occupational Therapy is easy when it's not. Occupations include almost EVERY thing people do, and as occupational therapists we must know EVERY way in which these occupations might be affected and how to help people engage in them. This includes knowing about development, neurological, musculoskeletal and mental diseases, and much more. Returning to my previous classes, it is true that they were much harder to understand and integrate than my OT classes, however, the latter are way longer, reducing the available study time and increasing the demands. I feel like I never have a week in which I don’t have a paper to hand or a couple of chapters to read.  

To make matters worse, at the beginning of that first semester we fell behind in anatomy and to compensate we had 2 exams (class and lab) every two weeks until the semester ended. The other week we had the exams from the rest of the classes. Another thing that made it difficult for me to adjust was the change from living in my house in the country (to be near my family, see the stars at night and the sight of the beach from my balcony), to live in this concrete jungle of the capital. All that stress aggravated some physical conditions and made the adjustment process even more difficult.

 However, that semester is over and ending it successfully helped me get my self-efficacy levels (which had already fallen significantly) back to normal. Some of the things that helped me survive was the support of my family including my aunt (with whom I stay while getting my degree) and my boyfriend (who bore all my complaints), my professors, my classmates (who are great human beings), and above all the certainty that God wants me just right where I am. This semester I have even more classes, but I decided to take things slow, to try to have a better occupational balance and be more positive. So far I think is working, I'll let you know in May.


I would like to end by saying that I loved my bachelor's and sometimes I miss it, but I love even more Occupational Therapy and I can say for sure that all the positives outweigh the negatives. I'm learning a lot in my classes Fundamentals of Occupational Therapy, Occupational Dysfunction, Dimensions of Movement, Neurology, Problem Based Learning and Evidence Based Practice and soon I will continue sharing my experiences from the past semester and hopefully catch up with the ones of this semester.....

Some books from my first year!

Born for OT

Have you ever experience that feeling that you are in just in the right place. That without knowing it, your personality and past experiences were preparing you for this moment. Well, that's how I felt when I started my first semester as an Occupational Therapy student. 

Since I started my baccalaureate, I already had in mind to continue my graduate studies to become an OT, but the truth was, I only knew a little part of what being an OT really meant. I knew that the profession was diverse, but I didn’t imagined how much. I knew it helped people, but not exactly how. I knew I wanted a profession where I could be creative, be near the patient step by step in the recovery process, help change lives. I wanted a profession in which the person wouldn’t be seen as a number or as a disease, but as a human .What a relief was to reaffirm I had entered the right master's program!

Even though I enjoyed and learned a lot from my baccalaureate in biomedical sciences, I always felt as if something was missing. I never heard talking about spirituality, therapeutic use of self, self-awareness and much less about client-centered intervention in any of my classes. All this concepts helped me understand that the profession I had chosen was much more transcendental than I thought.  In one of my first assigned readings the quote from Adolf Meyer: “We bring opportunities, not prescriptions” helped me realize that what was missing in biomedical sciences were opportunities beyond those that the medical model alone can offer.

After learning the values ​​and beliefs of the profession, I confirmed that they matched my own. In a couple of days I already felt as a part of OT, or that OT had always been part of me, I'm not sure!  That semester I understood what “vocation” really means; to feel that this is what you were created for. Without knowing it, my whole life I had within me the seed to become an OT. Now, all I need to do is work hard to make it grow. 

"You know how much your vocation weighs on you. And if you betray it, it is yourself who you deface, but know that your truth will slowly be, because it is birth of tree and not finding of a formula. "
-Antoine De Saint Exupery