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00:00:01
Should I get into Hand Therapy
239 Plays10 days ago
Miranda and Josh talk about if you should or shouldn't get into the field of Hand Therapy
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Transcript
00:00:06
josh MacDonald
Hi, I'm Josh McDonald.
00:00:07
Miranda Materi
And I'm Miranda Materi, and we are Hand Therapy Academy.
00:00:11
josh MacDonald
So we get asked sometimes, how do I get into hand therapy? Like I've been doing some other things and now I want to get in hand therapy, but we want to answer the question, is hand therapy the right field for you? Is it something that you, that it's a good fit for you long-term? So let's talk about some of the things to do to know if it's right for you and some of the factors to take into consideration.
00:00:31
Miranda Materi
Yes, is it right for you? i Sometimes I get students, maybe they're coming out to observe and they're just seeing and I feel like when you first observe, like when I observed hand therapy on my first level one, I thought, this is so boring.
00:00:47
Miranda Materi
And here we are working at it 20 years later. So I think um it can change. But I think one thing is you start by observing and seeing if it's something you could be interested in. And even if it does seem maybe like, oh, I'm not sure. But if you really like anatomy and you really like that analytical thinking, it might be a good fit for you.
00:01:09
josh MacDonald
Yeah, it's really kind of a mindset difference. I did pediatrics for a long time, then I went into hand therapy. I knew from a student that I liked hand therapy, it's kind of ah a second career if I needed to switch. But yeah you're right, you have to have that like analytical side. Not that I didn't do that in pediatrics when I was doing assessments and kids with autism and that kind of stuff. but But it's this like it's more of an orthopedic model, obviously. So it's something where I have to be willing and and interested in getting into the weeds on the detail and the minutiae of anatomy and mechanics and how things work. And I have to understand anatomy from a different perspective and a deeper level than maybe some of the other fields in OT.
00:01:48
Miranda Materi
Right, and I feel like with pediatrics or even with general OT, you kind of have to know a lot about everything, right? Because you don't really know what you're going to get. You're like, oh, it could be this. So it's different, right? Versus the hand and upper extremity, that's what we know. So it's nice because you can hyper focus on this area.
00:02:10
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah, yeah. you're ah in In home health, you're going to get a variety of diagnoses. In geriatrics or in pediatrics, you have a breadth of knowledge you have to keep. Here, we're doing a deep dive. And when I have a patient with a PIP, arthroplasty, I have to really get down into what are all the minute structures involved. So if that's something that's of interest for you, then it's maybe a better fit.
00:02:33
Miranda Materi
yeah definitely or if you're like fine like okay I don't need to know everything about you know this person that had a total hip arthroplasty and now I'm seeing him for OT like I feel like as a generalist you kind of have to like not that you don't need to know stuff I think you need to know stuff as it pertains to OT but you don't have know everything about their medical diagnoses right like
00:02:52
josh MacDonald
yeah
00:02:52
Miranda Materi
but or Versus like with hand therapy you like know all the details, you know that surgeon did four core sutures You know, he didn't have the tenderness repair like you really get into the details
00:03:04
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah. I had a student once, she was level two and she was maybe halfway through her rotation and she really wasn't gonna be all that interested in hand therapy. It was a good way for her to dip her toe into the pool and figure out like, oh yeah, I'm just not interested in getting that deep into it. And she actually said to a patient one day, she's like, I can't wait until I graduate so I can be done studying.
00:03:25
josh MacDonald
And everybody, all the clinic all the clinicians in the room kind of reeled back like, ooh, yeah, no. In no aspect of OT should you ever be done researching and studying, but for sure in hand therapy, like you should always be keeping up to date on what's new and refreshing your memory on things, teaching students with, yeah. So we're always deep in the weeds on learning new things. And that's something that's part of what we do on a daily basis.
00:03:49
Miranda Materi
And I think what makes it so stimulating.
00:03:52
josh MacDonald
Absolutely. That's something that not just is like, yeah, I guess I'm okay with that. That should drive you. That should be something you're interested in.
00:03:58
Miranda Materi
Yeah, definitely.
00:03:59
josh MacDonald
Yeah. So some other ways to find out if it's a good fit for you is, um, we talk about when you want to get into it, go out in the community and meet therapists, go into clinics, volunteer, or get some extra hours in a clinic.
00:04:13
josh MacDonald
The same thing for if you're trying to decide if it's right for you is go get exposure to the practice.
00:04:18
Miranda Materi
And maybe take a course, go to some meetings, right? Like see, you know, sometimes they'll have weekend hand therapy courses or, you know, some of the like ASHT has their meaning and they have it online as well. And if that stuff is like interesting to you and you're interested in learning more about it, I think, you know, hand therapy might be a good fit.
00:04:35
josh MacDonald
Yeah, that's a great suggestion. When I was considering doing it, ah switching from pediatric to to hand therapy, um I went to the Indiana Hand Care Conference. I thought, you know what, I wanna, it cost me money. It was out of my pocket because it wasn't related to my job at the time. And I thought, if this is gonna be something I do, I've gotta be willing to put some skin in the game on my end um and loved it, fell in love with it at the Indiana Hand Care Conference. So it really is a good way to at least see like, is this the kind of content I wanna spend time in my career on?
00:05:01
Miranda Materi
Yeah, and it's a real, you know, it is a little expensive but it's a cheap investment for learning if it's something you're going to enjoy long term.
00:05:08
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. um It's also important to know some of the aspects of hand therapy and how that affects you kind of on a day to day basis. For example, it's often that you will see more patients per day in a hand therapy outpatient setting than you would in a home care where you're driving house to house or in pediatrics where you can only see so many kids at a time. um Your patient caseload volume will be higher. um And then the setting is such where you'll be sitting at a table with two to three, maybe four of your patients that you're kind of floating and and managing between at any given time. So it's something you have to be willing to multitask and kind of juggle all that at the same time.
00:05:47
Miranda Materi
Yeah, and maybe you can find a clinic where you see you're seeing like, you know, it just depends on the clinic too, but yeah, you definitely have to be more willing, like with the pediatric, you're for sure gonna be one-on-one, right? But with adults and with insurance reimbursement, how it's going, it's really hard to not have to see. For the clinic to be profitable, you're probably gonna be seeing to at least two people an hour.
00:06:07
josh MacDonald
yeah
00:06:07
Miranda Materi
And I know people are like, that's terrible, but there's no way that clinics are going to be profitable or even able to pay you unless you're part of a hospital system, oh unless that's happening.
00:06:07
josh MacDonald
yeah
00:06:18
josh MacDonald
Yeah. Yeah. Um, and also the, the note process I feel like is more efficient for the orthopedic settings than it is for like in a pediatric. It's more, um, it's, it's less narrative. So I feel like my notes go a little faster, which is kind of a nice, uh, nice aspect to it, especially if you're seeing a set of the higher volume than you would be at other locations. So that can be a benefit too.
00:06:38
Miranda Materi
Right, yeah, it's definitely, I mean, it's more objective, right? So you're not writing so much of this like story or saying, oh, they did this for, you know, they did 15 reps for improving tendon gliding.
00:06:42
josh MacDonald
Yeah. Yeah.
00:06:50
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah. um But definitely encourage you finding clinics in your area where you can even observe, you can volunteer, you can spend some extra time just to get a feel, maybe in a different types of settings. Miranda mentioned a hospital setting is very different than an outpatient setting is different than a surgeon's practice. So if you can find some of those settings and just drop in and say like, hey, can I can um observe you for a day or two?
00:07:13
josh MacDonald
That's kind of what I did when switching is I found two or three therapists and said, can I observe you for a day? Can I take you out for coffee in the morning? Can I just pick your brain on things and just get yourself out there and see is this something that is of interest to me at a deeper level?
00:07:27
Miranda Materi
And then no, each clinic has its own culture too, right? So if you go to a place and you saw hand therapy and you're like, I don't know, like that's, it could just be the clinic culture, right? I'm finding that too and going to different settings, like I might really enjoy um like an outpatient orthopedic setting here, but when I went to a different one, the culture was totally different, I didn't. So it's not only just learning about hand therapy, but it's also learning like, what's the culture like at that place?
00:07:54
Miranda Materi
So if you observe one and you're like, I'm not sure, you know, like Josh said, he found like two or three.
00:07:54
josh MacDonald
Yeah.
00:08:00
josh MacDonald
Yeah, the speed and tempo will be different. Just how a therapist runs their clinic and the conversations they keep with the patients, we try to have fun with our patients. We try to engage with them.
00:08:10
josh MacDonald
We learn about their personal lives. Patients enjoy coming. They make friends while they're there with other patients. So it's something that the culture makes a big difference. But I think that's true of any, like if I want to learn about pediatrics, I wouldn't just go to one clinic because it may be a real downer of an employer.
00:08:24
josh MacDonald
So try a couple different places.
00:08:26
Miranda Materi
Yeah.
00:08:27
josh MacDonald
Yeah. um Mostly, just get out there and get some exposure to it. um Find out if it's something that you enjoy and something you would be willing to you know do for several years. If you're putting all the effort and time into it, it's kind of a big deal.
00:08:38
josh MacDonald
So make sure you put the research into it ahead of time um to make it worth the big switch because it's kind of a big switch.
00:08:45
Miranda Materi
Definitely.
00:08:46
josh MacDonald
Yeah.
00:08:46
Miranda Materi
So for more information, check us out info at hand therapy Academy, you check our Instagram, um email, whatever's easiest.