A day in the life of an Occupational Therapy student on placement.
Date 11 March 2024
Occupational Therapy BSc (Hons) student, Inge, shares her typical day as a work placement student at a Northamptonshire hospital. Work placements can boost your employability and are available on many of our undergraduate courses.
Week five of six is nearly complete. It’s Friday morning and after an early alarm, I’m waking up feeling excited for the day to come. A quick breakfast with a double espresso woke me up and I feel bright and sparkly.
My daily commute takes me about 45 minutes for a single journey and I can’t lie, I’m finding this quite tiring. A45 then A43…they’re not the nicest routes in Northamptonshire but a girl’s gotta’ do what a girl’s gotta’ do, right? When I started my placement at Kettering General Hospital (KGH) I left the house in the dark and had to walk from the car park to the hospital when it was still dark. Now, it’s quite different. Halfway enroute to KGH I can see the sun come up on my right side and that’s a great start to the day.
My radio is set to BBC Radio 2 and I’m getting very used to Zoe Ball’s radio show and her ’7 33’ which are songs chosen by listeners. I’m singing my way to Kettering!
The nine-minute walk from the car park to the hospital gets me some fresh air before I start my day inside. I leave my bag in the locker room, and get my pen (black!), swipe card, name badge, bottle and pocketbook, and find my team in the therapy office.
After a huddle (jargon for small team meeting) we make our way up to the wards. Normally I’m based on the respiratory ward at KGH, but today I’m shadowing an Occupational Therapist in hand therapy. What an interesting experience! I think the Therapist may be exhausted after working with me for the morning, because I kept asking questions…I loved it! We did several ROM (range of movement) assessments and I observed the creation of a splint.
In the afternoon, I went up to the ward where we completed a sling assessment prior to discharge with one patient, and a stairs assessment with another patient.
There was some time to work on my PPLAT (placement journal) and a few other admin bits and pieces and then it was time to go home and start the weekend – the walk back to the car park is a good moment to reflect on the day. I left the hospital in the light, but it was already dark when I got home. Time for a little drink and to mentally prepare for my last week of placement at KGH.
Inge is studying Occupational Therapy BSc (Hons) at the University of Northampton. She is currently on a work placement at Kettering General Hospital.