As PNWU grows, so too must the opportunities we offer. Scholarships play a vital role in those opportunities, eroding the barriers that stand between our students and their desires to provide quality care to those in need.
With our newest program slated to begin next fall, we sat down with School of Occupational Therapy (SOT) Founding Director Heather Fritz, PhD, to discuss the unique benefits OTs provide to our communities and the role that scholarships play in the success of her program’s future graduates.
Of all the programs to add to PNWU’s health sciences campus, what made Occupational Therapy the right pick?
Just as there is a shortage of primary care physicians and physical therapists in the Pacific Northwest, there is also a shortage of occupational therapists (OTs). In PNWU’s five-state region (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska), people of all ages suffer from lower access to occupational therapy services. The addition of the Occupational Therapy program was a logical next step in fulfilling the PNWU mission and vision.
OTs help people participate in life in the way they want and need to. Graduates of PNWU’s School of Occupational Therapy (SOT) will enhance life in our communities, helping to ensure that our children don’t fall behind in their growth and development, our adults can remain safe and independent in their own homes, that those with mental health conditions have the opportunity to participate in school or work, and so much more.
What are some qualities you hope to see in the students that will fill your program’s first class?
We look for many things.
OTs are often characterized as professional problem solvers. For example, an OT may be working with two clients who have the same injury. However, if one client is a Karate instructor and the other client is a retired homemaker, the goals, treatment approaches, and adaptations that allow the person to get back to doing the things they want and need to do – what we refer to as “occupations” – will differ significantly.
Given the complexity and variability of such “occupations,” our students need to be intellectually curious. They need to be aware of and interested in working with diverse clients; to be leaders and advocates for their patients, many of whom lack a voice in our contemporary healthcare system.
We’re looking for evidence of those traits, in addition to (of course), signals that the student will be academically successful in a rigorous graduate program.
What role do scholarships play in creating opportunities for those students?
At PNWU, our ideal students are often the same students who lack financial resources, or struggle with the financial challenges of pursuing a graduate health professions degree.
Our mission is to recruit students from rural and medically underserved communities, educate those students, and ultimately return them as OTs equipped to care for rural and medically underserved communities. Scholarships are critical to recruit and support those students in their dreams of becoming occupational therapists.
Why should people support OT scholarships at PNWU?
After an illness or injury, people want and need to live as fulfilling of a life as they can. OTs are critical in assisting people to do just that: to live their best lives despite the physical, socioemotional, or cognitive challenges they face.
By supporting the training of high-quality future OTs, our community is ensuring that they – alongside their loved ones, friends and neighbors – have access to these critical services that make a difference for the health and wellbeing of our communities.