Personal Experience Gives OT Faculty Unique Perspective

The first occupational therapists Amber Jenkins, OTD, MLS, OTR/L, assistant professor of occupational therapy, remembers having weren’t trained at all in the discipline – it was her mom and dad.

Growing up in rural Wamego, Kansas, Jenkins was born with a condition known as Poland Syndrome, resulting in a limb difference on her right hand. But she said she never felt – and was never made to feel — that she was limited because of it. In fact, her parents supported her in any endeavor — when she wanted to play baseball, her father modified a glove to fit on her limb different side. When she wanted to use a hair dryer, her mother sewed a custom sleeve to fit over her right hand to hold it.

“My parents never ever put any limits on me,” she said. “They just kind of were like, ‘Well, let's figure it out.’”

Inspired by that experience, Jenkins said she was set on engineering, hoping to become an astronaut. It wasn’t until high school that she had even heard of the occupational therapy discipline when a doctor suggested she would be a good fit for the profession.

“I wanted to work with people,” she said. “The thing I liked about engineering was building stuff, making things, the process of figuring something out. In that respect, OT really spoke to me.”

In broad terms, occupational therapy is focused on helping individuals with a range of conditions find ways to perform their daily tasks, or occupations. It often involves OTs working closely with patients to first identify those occupations and developing strategies or adaptations to make it possible for the patient to participate in the tasks that are part of their daily life.

“They may have maybe injured their shoulder and yes, we need to look at strength and range of motion and all that,” Jenkins said. “But we're looking as well at how does that actually impact them? How is that keeping them from engaging in their daily occupations? How is that impacting their mental health? It's not just about treating them to fix whatever the shoulder issue is, it's how do they keep engaged in life?”

In her work and research as a faculty member, Jenkins seeks to expand awareness and understanding of how those with congenital limb difference, like her, experience the world differently than individuals with a limb difference due to amputation. While there are some basic commonalities, she said being born with a limb difference means many individuals, as Jenkins put it, “just figured it out” when it comes to performing everyday tasks. As a result, adults with congenital limb difference often experience chronic pain from compensation — something that Jenkins herself experiences. So she started reaching out to other OTs with congenital limb difference using social media. With that network, she said, she hopes to develop resources for other OT instructors and students that sheds light on the specific needs of that population.

That kind of curiosity — the approach to personal connection and problem-solving that drew Jenkins to the profession in the first place — is something that Jenkins said she tries to encourage students to see as unique in their work as OTs.

“We live in the gray area so much. Something might work for this person, but it's not going to work for this person, or this might be really important for this person. It's not for this one,” she said. “It's kind of a running joke in OT education that the answer to most students’ questions is, ‘It depends.’”