I'll be there for you

Professor Flick was the guest speaker in our foundations class today and it was definitely a lecture that touched my heart. We learned about health promotion and health literacy and something that really stuck out to me was that the average reading level for the United States was at a 5th grade level. I did not realize until today that there were so many patients that leave a health care setting and do not understand what their diagnosis was or how to take the medications prescribed to them. Learning about this really motivated me to try to make the health care setting a little less intimidating for these people. I have set a goal for myself and I am challenging myself to always try to make sure the clients that I encounter feel welcomed and feel like they can be comfortable enough with me to ask questions about things they may not understand. In the past 5 weeks I have been taking a course called "Serving the Underserved" and it has touched on a lot of the topics that professor Flick spoke about as well. We have learned in this course about different organizations in the area that provide services for those who are underserved in the community and still need healthcare provided for them. We even got a little insight into how an individual in an underserved community thinks, feels, and what they go through on a daily basis. One of the topics that was mentioned in class today that I was able to relate back to what I had learned in serving the underserved was occupational deprivation. What this means is that some individuals do not have access to participate in occupations that other individuals do for many different reasons. For example, healthy food options are not always plentiful in these types of environments so these individuals do not have access to the same variety of fresh foods that those in another community would have readily available. I am so excited that as I pursue my career as an occupational therapist I will have the opportunity to try to make a difference in the lives of these individuals.

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