Occupational Therapy

Mission

The mission of the Occupational Therapy program is to prepare its graduates for the scientific, efficacious, ethical, and evidence-based practice of occupational therapy. The professional masters degree program provides its graduates with the knowledge, skills, and understanding necessary to practice general occupational therapy at the entry-level, and to have an excellent foundation for later specialization and for professional lifelong learning. The two tracks of the professional masters program offer students both the core professional courses and enhanced experiences for beginning researchers, leaders, and advocates in service to consumers and the profession. The post-professional masters degree program provides its students the opportunity to specialize and provide advanced leadership in an area of practice.

Design of Curriculum

The occupational therapy curriculum design incorporates five strands. These strands consist of the four aspects of human occupation: (a) body structure/function, (b) task/activity or function, (c) participation or occupation, and (d) context: family, environmental, sociocultural; as well as (e) clinical and research reasoning, formulated from theories of expertise development. The strands are bound together to lead directly to the clinical practice of occupational therapy, which includes evaluation, intervention planning and implementation, documentation, supervision, administration, consultation, research, and health care planning.

The purpose of the curricular structure is to promote the steady acquisition of the knowledge, skills, understanding, values, and professional behaviors of a well-prepared, entry level therapist. The program seeks to build solid foundations for general practice, upon which graduates may base lifelong, continuing education, and later professional specialization if they wish. The faculty believe that the strongest educational preparation is achieved through a rigorous encounter with theory, closely supervised and practiced skills, and ample opportunities to apply knowledge to the situations of actual practice.

Puget Sound’s Occupational Therapy program is highly unusual nationwide in that during the final semester of the academic portion of the curriculum, students, under faculty supervision, have full responsibility for evaluating and treating clients in the program’s on-site clinic. This experience is a powerful preparation for the required off-campus fieldwork placements.

Educational Goals

Education in occupational therapy is incomplete unless it is integrated with the liberal arts. The professional occupational therapist should think logically, analytically, and creatively; communicate clearly and effectively; be intellectually autonomous; understand the interrelationship of various branches of knowledge; and develop a set of personal and professional values. Specifically, the educational goals for students include the following:

1. Demonstrate the ability to move fluidly in the analysis of human occupation among data pertaining to participation, contextual factors, activities and tasks, and body functions and structure.
2. Frame problems of human occupation in accordance with current theoretical models and frames of reference.
3. Devise therapeutic intervention plans and programs for individual clients, for groups of clients, and for settings (i.e., population-based services).
4. Demonstrate the ability to investigate and gather data systematically and logically.
5. Test hypotheses during and after the course of intervention through further data collection and interpretation.
6. Demonstrate professional values and understanding that exhibit appreciation for the diversity of human values, occupation, and overt behaviors of people of various cultures and backgrounds.
7. Exhibit the expected qualities of character and competence of a professional health care practitioner.
8. Demonstrate an understanding of the relationships between practitioners and clients, among practitioners, and between people and the health care system.
9. Demonstrate a substantial level of independent, self-directed learning.
10. Demonstrate the skills and knowledge for effective practice in a variety of medical, educational, and community-based settings.

The Occupational Therapy curriculum at Puget Sound places a strong emphasis on developing effective writing skills. The faculty has carefully designed a program of writing assignments throughout the curriculum to develop students’ clinical reasoning, help shape their evolution as ethical health care professionals, stimulate life long habits of critically reading research, and assist students in producing documentation that meets health care industry standards. Graduate students in the Master of Science in Occupational Therapy track conduct original research and communicate their findings in a written format that is modeled after published articles in length and style. Many of the program’s graduate student research projects are subsequently published in professional journals. Graduate students in the Master of Occupational Therapy track create a program development plan for an agency or facility currently without occupational therapy, or for an occupational therapy department seeking to expand its service delivery opportunities.

Masters Program in Occupational Therapy

The entry level Master's Program in Occupational Therapy, leading to either a Master of Science in Occupational Therapy or to a Master of Occupational Therapy, is for college graduates who wish to become occupational therapists. The program, which requires completion of 14.5 units of Occupational Therapy coursework, is two academic years in length plus a minimum of six months of full-time fieldwork experience. In addition to meeting admission requirements for Occupational Therapy, candidates must meet the admission requirements for graduate students at the University. The department also offers a one year post-professional MSOT for occupational therapists with a BSOT or equivalent degree.

Course of Study

There are three phases to the Occupational Therapy course of study: pre-professional, professional, and field experience.

The pre-professional phase occurs prior to enrollment in the program. During this phase, applicants complete Occupational Therapy program prerequisites.

During the professional phase, students complete the required Occupational Therapy coursework.

The fieldwork experience phase consists of completion of at least six months of full-time practice under the supervision of a registered occupational therapist in a medical center, school, or health care facility. Following completion of the fieldwork experience, students are eligible to take the written national certification examination. In states with occupational therapy licensure laws, passing the national examination is accepted as evidence of competence to practice.

Students are admitted into one of two degree tracks: the Research track (leading to the MSOT degree) or the Policy, Advocacy, Leadership track (leading to the MOT). For the first year, students in both tracks follow essentially the same curriculum. In the second year, MSOT students enroll for two semesters of research, culminating in a thesis. MOT students take a course relevant to programming, advocacy, and leadership and complete a major program development or policy project.

Research Track

This graduate degree track has existed at Puget Sound for more than 25 years. It was established at a time when it was critically important to test and verify the theoretical foundations and practical techniques of occupational therapy using rigorous, systematic methods of study. The need for such an emphasis today is no less. The health care system requires evidence of effective therapeutic outcomes, and the need to promote evidence-based practice is stronger than ever before. Both quantitative and qualitative methodologies are taught and valued in the program. Puget Sound graduates of the research track will have exceptionally strong abilities to critique all types of existing research, and to design and implement a worthwhile research study which contributes to the professional literature.

Policy, Advocacy, and Leadership Track

Events of the past twenty years have clearly demonstrated the need for practitioner involvement in the making of health care policy. Occupational therapists have always been strong advocates for their individual clients, but now they must do more, and become advocates for populations of potential clients and for their profession and what it has to offer in the greater health care arena. New leadership skills are required, beyond those of the traditional practitioner working in a stable, unchanging context of care. Graduates of this newly-established (2000) track will have acquired enhanced skills and experiences in the realm of health care policy and advocacy through program design and development. It is anticipated that many of the program plans developed by Puget Sound graduate students will be submitted as grant proposals for funding and actual implementation.