Emma spoke to us about her role at CUH and gives advice to anyone who's looking at becoming an AHP.
I'm Emma Searle, advanced occupational therapist, hand therapy team lead. I first joined the trust in 2002 as a new graduate after doing one of my student placements here 20 years ago!.
I did a 6 month rotations in 4 different clinical areas (orthopaedics, medical, hand therapy and neuro-rehab) then left for a year to gain experience working in other hospitals.
I came back in 2005 as the next grade up, this time doing 10 month rotations in orthopaedics, community and then hand therapy. A static position came up in hand therapy in 2008 and I have worked in the hand therapy team ever since, apart from two periods of maternity leave.
In 2017 I became the hand therapy team lead, and now am fortunate to work with a small but growing team of experienced, hardworking dedicated therapists and assistants who all aspire to achieve the best care possible for the patients despite limited resources.
Hand therapy is an outpatient service which provide therapy to patients with hand conditions or after their hand surgery. It includes splinting, scar management oedema management, exercises, pain management, sensory re-education, and therapeutic and functional activities.
Every day is different. I get to work with a wide variety of ages, and get to see them progress and return back to their daily functional activities.
Sometimes patients just need a one off session for advice and a home treatment plan, others I might work with over several months if it’s a more complex injury. We work closely with the hands consultants and other departments like the plastic surgery unit and orthopaedics.
We get to see a wide variety of conditions and have to use a lot of clinical reasoning and many different treatment techniques including splinting, and therapeutic activities.
There is the opportunity to complete many service development projects in hand therapy including service evaluations, audits, and we are starting to get involved in research projects now that the team is fully staffed.
Occupational therapy covers so many clinical areas, not just in the acute hospital but in the community, schools, mental health settings as well as physical settings, and there are many emerging roles that an occupational therapist can now work in. Once you are qualified, there is so much scope for your career!
Try to get some shadowing experience before you apply/start your course. Once you qualify, a rotational post is a great way of experiencing lots of different clinical areas and learning lots of transferable skills until you find an area that you want to specialise in.