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Stay Client-Centered Always

My senior year of my undergraduate degree at the University of Alabama I started a job as a therapy aide at a local outpatient clinic.  I loved the atmosphere and the fast pace as it was a very busy clinic with often times 10 patients an hour between 3 therapists and 2 PTAs.  Often times every client's session started with preparatory exercises such as the arm/leg bike, pulleys, fluidotherapy machines, and more.  As I was working there I saw the purpose to these exercises to warm up the muscles before therapy sessions.  Now that I have spent three months in OT school, I see there might be better activities to engage the clients in and make their hour sessions more worthwhile and motivating.  I wonder if the therapists used these preparatory exercises because they were so busy and could not work the entirety of the hour one-on-one with the clients, forcing them split their time between themselves and prep exercises. I thought the busier the clinic was the better business they were running. However when that is the case, are they keeping the client's needs first and maintaining a client-centered practice?  I respect and admire the therapists I worked under for that year, and I always wanted to work at a clinic with the same values and atmosphere myself one day.  However, I can now reflect on that experience and hopefully take the knowledge I have learned since then to take with me to my future practice that might be a little different from their practice.

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