TEXTBOOK KNOWLEDGE OR WORLDLY KNOWLEDGE ?

There have been three particular occurrences over the last month that have stemmed my current thoughts. The first being whilst on electives when the head OT said to me “You can be a top A student but still have no clinical reasoning”. The second being when we arrived back at holidays and our lecturer explained to us how this module was going to challenge us and really test our knowledge that we have built up over the last two and a half years – knowledge that even though we may have passed previous years, we may still not have because we could’ve been as she simply put it “skating through” without really learning or understanding much. And then finally a few days ago when we got given some articles to read in preparation for our lecture, the one in particular was talking about the importance of medical professionals having knowledge of and being aware of different cultures. This particular sentence from that article got my attention: “It is not rigid and is beyond knowledge, skills and attitudes more a type of thinking and knowing”. These three occurrences have made realise that even though you may be able to recite an entire textbook and get an A for the test does not mean that you know how to use that knowledge, where to use that knowledge or even when to use that knowledge. Basically it does not mean that you understand that knowledge. And just having textbook knowledge is so limiting, what about worldly knowledge, knowing what is happening all around us and how it may be affecting us?  And it may be great that we can memorise our notes and textbooks but we cannot simply put those bits of knowledge into boxes and leave them there, possibly forget it all over a couple of weeks holiday. We need to be able to combine it, intertwine it and apply it to a real life situation. We need to be aware of what is happening in the world because it is probably affecting us without us even realising it and more so it is probably affecting our clients that we are trying to help – well how can we help if we have no knowledge of it? So maybe sitting in front of our textbooks for hours is actually not making us anymore ‘knowledgeable”. Maybe we need to spend less time at our desks and more time out in the real world observing, analysing and possibly just reading the newspaper.

“Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way a car is driven.” Edward de Bono

You are only as knowledgeable and intelligent as you make yourself.

CHALLENGING NEW SEMESTER

Back to reality after a few weeks break and it’s hard to fall back into the routine of lectures. This semester is our Psych block which admittedly I’m very nervous for. In previous years my practical placements have been at old ages homes and so this year when we were allowed some choice in our placements I decided to go for a Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation centre in Newlands Park. Although I am quite anxious about what lies ahead I think that I need to challenge myself through working in an acute setting with a supervisor who I know is going to push me. I want to ensure that I have a good foundation so that I am prepared for my fourth and final year next year…

To prepare myself for the weeks ahead I am going to look back on work done in previous years (it has been a year since we did Pysch last :/) but most importantly I am going to ensure I sleep as much as I can now because I have a feeling sleep will be a luxury in a couple of weeks’ time. To stay motivated, I think the experience that I talked about in my previous blog will help me keep my head down.

 

What motivates us ?... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

A lesson learnt during Vac

Every year we are required to do two weeks of elective work in hospitals during our time off from varsity in order to make up some of our practical hours that we need in order to graduate. This year a fellow class mate and I decided to venture into two of the more rural settings to gain some experience as well as to prepare ourselves for our community service year. So we set off to our chosen hospitals, one in Harding and one in Kokstad hitting pot holes the size of my car on the way there which began to make us doubt our choice to be adventurous. However it turned out to be the most emotionally moving experience that I have had since I began studying OT. One day in particular stood out for me and that was when we accompanied the Kokstad Hospitals comm serv OT and Physio to one of their clinics in a community called Ndawana just outside of Underburg. We packed the back of the double cab bakkie with wheelchairs, mobile plinths, walking frames, toys and all the rest and off we went. When we arrived at the clinic there was not a soul to be seen which the community caregiver (CCG) explained to us was due to the cold. So we got her (the CCG) into the bakkie with us and off we went to each individual house to find the clients we went there to treat. What we found in these tiny hut houses was hard to believe. We saw multiple cerebral palsy children but one in particular being a 17 year old boy who was terribly contracted due to the fact that his family had rarely brought him outside of their hut and left him in the dark on a mattress due to the stigma attached to disability and their lack of knowledge about his condition. We saw elderly stroke clients with home-made crutches that could barely hold their weight whose smiles were enormous when we handed them brand new walking frames and walking sticks and taught them how to use them. And so our day went on, now climbing the hillside by foot from one hut to the next carry wheelchairs on our backs seeing things we had never dreamed we would see before, some things that broke our hearts and some things that gave us hope.

 

 

Standing on the top of the hill now close to the end of the day I began to feel extremely useless. The people in the community of Ndawana are there crying out for help and they humbly welcome and appreciate any form of help that comes their way. And this was only one community, there are thousands just like it that need help too. But standing there as a third year Occupational Therapy student I felt as if there was no way I could give these people what they needed. It made me think of how I lose sight of things when I’m stuck in my daily routine of ploughing through copious amounts of varsity work wondering why I got myself into this and how I think my life is so hard because I have to sit and study when everyone is out. But standing there on that hill in the freezing cold was one of those situations that brought me back down to earth and reminded me why I’ve chosen to study OT. Although what we experienced that day was tough to accept it has made me realise how much more there is to what I am studying and it has given me the determination to come back to a new semester at varsity and absorb as much knowledge and gain as much experience as I can so that one day I can stand on that hill knowing that I have helped those people.

That day in Ndawana we could have turned around and gone home when we saw that there were no clients at the clinic. But we didn’t. We went and found them and as it turns out they needed us more than anyone back at the hospital would have needed us that day. I think as Occupational Therapists we need to do this, instead of just assuming there is no problem and turning our backs to it we need to search and dig deeper until we find it. We will help all those that we decide to help no matter how insignificant that help may seem, even if it means simply giving them a walking stick.