Assisting Living

Dedication begets dedication. That could be the catch phrase of the St. Ambrose Occupational Therapy Program. For the OT faculty, with a collective 125 years of practical experience, their personal commitment-to their field, students and patients-translates into occupational therapy graduates with the same dedication.

Evidence of this distinction has come recently in the form of faculty accolades: Later this spring, Professor Christine Urish will be named to the prestigious American Occupational Therapy Association Roster of Fellows, which recognizes AOTA members who have made exemplary contributions to the profession, OT education and AOTA.

It's because at St. Ambrose, "we focus on individuals, on what gives their lives meaning, to help them resume meaningful 'occupations,'" says Phyllis Wenthe, director of the program.

For a mother, that might mean a return to the "occupation" of cooking for her family. A teenager may desperately need to exercise his independence.

"OT looks different every time you see it," Wenthe explains. "As occupational therapists, we use this discernment as a basis for treatment-a return to the individual's own sense of health."

This focus on the person and their individual needs reverberates throughout the program. "The OT faculty team has many quiet heroes," Wenthe says. Every faculty member has an OT service project that they hold close to their heart, whether it's advocacy work with older adults, or pediatric and family support.

And when the program transitioned from a bachelor's to a master's degree-it is still the only program of its kind in Iowa-faculty created an assistive technology lab to adapt and fabricate OT devices, customized to individual needs. "We wanted to serve the greater good of the community," Wenthe says.

The work being done in the assistive technology lab has also attracted wide attention for its innovative, individualized approach, both in how students learn and in how each patient's challenge is addressed. Not for the first time, Jon Turnquist, director of the lab, garnered first and second place national awards in 2007 for his assistive technology inventions. And OT student Kristen Mandle's second place national award in 2007 was for the life-saving seizure sensor she developed.

There's no denying the program produces such outcomes, including the 2007 graduating MOT class's 100 percent first-time national board pass rate. Yet, as often happens, students like Kristen are drawn to Ambrose's program because they already share the OT faculty's dedication, which is, quite frankly, "hard to teach," Wenthe says.

And perhaps, she poses, it is this example of true caring and true passion, of putting belief into action, that provides as valuable a lesson as any learned in the classroom.

-J. Kettering