Occupational Therapy
By KEN MOSIER
For What2Be
Who am I?
Name: Kara Waitzman
Title: Occupational Therapist
Affiliation: Miami Valley Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
Education: Bachelor’s degree, Eastern Kentucky University
Multiple advanced certifications and ratings
Quote: “I decided I really liked it (in neonatal intensive care) so I worked my full-time job on Rehab and then came over here in the evenings and started sitting and learning,” she said.
What’s2Like:
►Every day is different
►Decent pay
►Success stories — seeing a baby born at 24 weeks leave the hospital looking good.
►Helping infants and families through a difficult time.
►As an OT, helping patients regain basic living skills that may have been lost.
What’s Not2Like:
►Can be emotionally draining at times.
►Seeing a baby (or patient) leave the hospital when you know in your heart the family doesn’t have the resources to continue care.
►Many OTs have to work weekends or shift work.
►Sometimes not enough hours in the day.
In her junior year and while a cheerleader at Bethel High School, Kara Waitzman broke her back. The injury was compounded the next year when she was involved in an automobile accident and broke her jaw and her back for the second time.
“Back then they didn’t do surgery (for a broken back) so I lay (flat) for 54 days in the hospital,” she recalled. “Some therapists came in on my 53rd day and said, ‘tomorrow you are going to get up. They are going to let you out of bed so you need to do these exercises.’”
That was her introduction to therapy. “I didn’t like what she did but I liked the idea of what she did — she was a physical therapist,” Waitzman continued. “So I kind of looked into it and realized that occupational therapy was much more holistic and whole-body. I always knew I wanted to work with people.”
Waitzman enrolled at Eastern Kentucky University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in occupational therapy.
She began work in the rehabilitation unit at Miami Valley Hospital immediately after graduation. She was assigned as a backup therapist to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
“They called it ‘ghost therapy’ because (therapists) came in so infrequently. I really liked it over here and I would work my full-time job in Rehab and then come over here in the evenings, sitting and learning.”
Eventually she convinced the hospital that she should be a full-time person in the NICU. She now is at the recently-opened, 60-bed NICU in the Berry Women’s Health Pavilion at MVH and works with mostly premature babies. “As an Occupational Therapist, I evaluate and treat the babies. Things I might evaluate might be their overall development — in other words, how they respond to noise, light, touch, smell, taste — those kinds of things. I do an overall assessment of those things and provide treatment that will help their body and their brain adapt to the environment and help their brain grow and develop normally,” she explained. She added that even full-term babies who are in the NICU can benefit from her services. “Lots and lots of brain development is happening in those first few months.”
Waitzman said there is another level to her field. “A Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant — those are two-year degrees,” she said. “ The biggest difference is that an Occupational Therapist can evaluate or assess patients and come up with a treatment plan. COTAs carry out that plan.” She added that, because it is constant evaluation and assessment, COTAs could not work in an NICU.
To become an Occupational Therapist, a master’s degree is necessary under current standards. When Waitzman graduated from EKU, a bachelor’s degree was all that was required. She says she has no current plans to pursue a master’s and opts to get as many certifications as she can that are related to her neonatal specialty. She listed some of the certifications — some of which take a year or more to get — which include Neonatal Infant Development Care Assessment Program, Certified Infant Massage Instructor, Neuro-Development Training, certification in the Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence. “And I am certified as an Infant Development Instructor. So while I did not pursue a collegiate degree past my bachelor’s, I just keep continuing to specialize more and more into neonatal care.”
She estimated that OTs with her list of certifications number less than five in the country. She also received certification in 2009 in Advanced Competencies Neonatal Nurse — designed for master’s-prepared nurses. “There are only maybe 20 in the country that have passed that certification,” she said.
With her credentials, she speaks often at conferences across the country. Besides working at MVH, she works for a national consulting firm and runs her own business. When at MVH, she spends a great deal of time educating nurses, physicians, therapists and parents in proper care of the infant. She also handles a case load that can sometimes reach as high as 30 infants.
She designs an individual program for each infant and treatment can take many forms. She listed swaddle baths, manipulation of muscles and nerves and “lots of massage” as being among the techniques that she uses. She says every baby and, consequently, every day is different — a factor that she loves about her job.
“As an Occupational Therapist, you can help people in so many different walks of life and with so many activities,” Waitzman said.”Whether that activity is dressing or driving or eating or whatever. You learn how to break an activity down into a hundred pieces so you can learn what a person can or can’t do. If they can’t do pieces three through 26, then you break it down to work on those skills.
“I have a great job — I love my job.”
