Clinical Experience

Leadership

She / Her / Hers
Position: Department Chair & Professor
Organization: Department of Occupational Therapy

901 Walnut Street, 6th Floor
Suite 644
Philadelphia, PA 19107

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Admissions

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Level I & II: Fieldwork - Center City

Level I

Level I Fieldwork lets you combine your classroom learning with practical experience in the field of occupational therapy. Although experiential learning is important, it is not intended to be independent performance. In Level I Fieldwork, you have opportunities to work with individuals from an array of age groups, with a variety of physical, cognitive and psychosocial conditions and in a variety of practice settings. Some places students have gone for their Level I Fieldwork include:

  • Acute care
  • Rehab
  • Children’s hospitals
  • Psychiatric
  • Skilled nursing facilities
  • Outpatient and hand therapy

  • Pre-schools
  • Elementary
  • Middle and high schools
  • Schools for children with special needs

  • Home-based
  • Center-based

  • Group homes
  • Adult/older adult day programs
  • Sheltered workshops
  • Retirement communities
  • Homeless shelters
  • Home health
  • Therapeutic horseback riding programs
  • Day camps

Level II

During your Level II Fieldwork, you will have the opportunity to deliver occupational therapy services to clients with occupational performance deficits while developing your own skills in the use of evaluation and intervention. You will be exposed to a variety of age groups, diagnoses and practice settings. The overall goal of Level II Fieldwork is to develop the skills, attitudes, values and professionalism that enable safe, ethical, occupation-based practice and ultimately prepare you to be a competent entry-level occupational therapist.

During your Level II Fieldwork, you will be assigned to two sites for 12 weeks each on a full-time basis. The academic fieldwork coordinator is responsible for ensuring that Fieldwork sites provide students with well-designed, educational and diverse experiences to ensure that they have the most enriching Level II Fieldwork experience possible.

Fieldwork is completed in a variety of settings with several different populations and diagnoses. Some experiences you may encounter during your Fieldwork could include:

  • Working with a premature baby in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to address development of oral-motor skills, positioning, sensory stimulation and family/caregiver training.
  • Seeing a preschooler with cerebral palsy in her home to work on developing independence with dressing and eating, and to provide adaptive equipment and positioning techniques so she can eat at the dinner table with her family.
  • Seeing a school-age child with a developmental delay in his school for handwriting, gross and fine motor skills, play and school skills, and environmental adaptation so that he can better participate in school activities and with his peers.
  • Working with a teenage girl with a learning disorder in a community center for self-esteem, social skills and communication, so that she can be a more social adolescent.
  • Seeing a construction worker who was injured on the job in an outpatient setting for strength, range of motion and work environment adaptations, so he can return to his job.
  • Working in a hospital with an older adult who had a stroke to work on regaining independence and roles, community mobility and home modification so that she can return home.
  • Seeing a terminally ill cancer patient in his home to address quality of life issues.
  • Facilitating refugee resettlement by improving community mobility and transportation, developing work and job seeking skills, and reducing the effects of prolonged occupational deprivation.

Fieldwork begins your first semester in the program. Level I Fieldwork consists of at least four visits a semester. Level II Fieldwork is a minimum of 24-weeks of full-time work. For students in the OTD program, the Doctoral Capstone Experience begins in the Fall semester in the third year of the program.

The Fieldwork and OTD Doctoral Capstone Experience schedule is as follows:

BSMS, Center City
OT 330 (Level I) 1st Fall
OT 340 (Level I) 1st Spring
OT 341 (Level I) 1st Summer
OT 440 (Level I) 2nd Fall
OT 441 (Level I) 2nd Fall
OT 480 (Level II) 2nd Summer
OT 482 (Level II) 3rd Fall
OTD, Center City
OT 340 (level I) 1st Fall
OT 341 (level I) 1st Summer
OT 440 (level I) 2nd Fall
OT 441 (level I) 2nd Fall
OT 480 (level II) 2nd Spring
OT 482 (level II) 2nd Spring
OT 708A
(doctoral capstone experience)
3rd Fall
OT 708B
(doctoral capstone experience)
3rd Spring
MSOT, Center City
OT 340 (level I) 1st Fall
OT 341 (level I) 1st Summer
OT 440 (level I) 2nd Fall
OT 441 (level I) 2nd Fall
OT 480 (level II) 2nd Spring
OT 482 (level II) 2nd Spring