UIC OT Progress Notes: Fall 2013

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO

MESSAGE FROM THE

Progress Notes

DEPAR TMENT

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HEAD Dear Students, Colleagues, and Friends,

Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar, PhD Professor and Head

Our department is off to a great academic year. We are currently working towards achieving many of our strategic goals set by our faculty during the 2012 retreat. As such, I am very proud of our efforts to increase visibility by being highly engaged in national and international groups and task forces that promote occupational therapy research and education. We are also very pleased to have recruited three wonderful new faculty members: Theresa Carroll, Catherine Killian, and Heidi Fischer. We anticipate hiring one more clinical faculty and tenured faculty early next year. Looking at our goals around diversity and student engagement with the profession, we happily report that this academic year we welcomed our most diverse group of students ever, and we set a record on the number of students supported by travel awards to attend conferences, including AOTA. We will continue to work on our strategic goals. I am confident that our many strengths and assets place us in a good position to realize our vision of “Creating Tomorrow’s Practice.”

- Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar

Congratulations to Joy Hammel

May 2-4 Graduating students will be invited to the New Alum Networking Social on Fri., May 2.

All alumni will be invited to numerous events all weekend long.

Please save the date and plan to attend.

Details to come!

This spring, Joy Hammel, professor and OTD director of graduate studies, was named the Wade/ Meyer Endowed Chair in Occupational Therapy. The chair is meant to honor occupational therapy’s stance at the intersection of community health and participation, social sciences, cultural studies and disability studies. Joy’s contributions and leadership in the areas of community living and participation disparities in adults with disabilities—and in community-based participatory research (CBPR) with disability communities—place her in a unique position to perform the duties of the endowed professorship.

Joy has also been elected to be a National Fellow in the AOTF Academy of Research; she will be inducted at the AOTA conference in April 2014.

This is the highest scholarly honor conferred by the AOTF and one of the highest honors anywhere in the occupational therapy profession.

“This is a wonderful honor and clearly a recognition of Joy’s outstanding scholarly contributions to the advancement of knowledge in occupational therapy, specifically in community living and participation among individuals with disability,” said Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar.

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UIC hosts OT Summit of Scholars UIC’s Department of Occupational Therapy was honored to host the Second Annual Occupational Therapy Summit of Scholars in May 2013. Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar and Joy Hammel led the organizational committee for this event with the support of co-sponsors at Washington University, University of Southern California, and Thomas Jefferson University.

UIC OT student volunteers with AOTA president Ginny Stoffel

The summit brought together over100 top researchers, junior scientists, and representatives from key stakeholders such as AOTA and AOTF. Participants presented new research, shared the state of the science in occupational therapy, and discussed future directions for the field. PhD student Danbi Lee was honored for the Most Outstanding Poster Presentation for her poster, “Improving Participation Through Strategies: A Qualitative Study on Strategies Used

by People with Stroke.”

We were honored to have esteemed colleagues from The Karolinska Institute in Sweden participating at the summit.

UIC faculty (front row: Liz Peterson, Joy Hammel, Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar) with visitors from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute (back row: Anders Kottorp, Susanne Guidetti, Staffan Josephsson, Lena Borell)

Illi-SOTA:

UIC OT empowered at AOTA’s Capitol Hill Day Four MS students and one OTD student accompanied clinical associate professor Gail Fisher to Washington, DC, for AOTA’s Capitol Hill Day on September 30, 2013. (Gail attended as chair of the American Occupational Therapy Political Action Committee.) The group had successful visits with staff of Sen. Mark Kirk and three representatives.

Following their visit, Rep. Robin Kelly signed on as a co-sponsor of AOTA’s therapy cap repeal bill.

According to the students, this was an empowering experience. The OT department uses alumni donations to support students attending Capitol Hill Day and other conferences.

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Occupational Therapy Student News LEND training program participants Marlen Garcia ’14 and Dallas Castillo ’13 are participating in the LEND training program. LEND is an interdisciplinary, graduate-level training program located within our college in the Institute on Disability and Human Development. The training focuses on leadership development in the areas of advocacy, research, community engagement, and clinical skills for graduate students who plan to work with children with autism.

Assembly of Student Delegates representative selected First-year student Melina Marte was chosen to be this year’s AOTA Assembly of Student Delegates representative for UIC. The Assembly of Student Delegates representative serves as the liaison between AOTA and the occupational therapy students at a given university. Melina was chosen by her peers at UIC to share their opinions and questions with AOTA and then disseminate any information gained to UIC’s OT students in order to improve our program and our student organization.

Certified Lymphedema Therapist training In August 2013, Amanda Schell ’14 (standing far right) completed a 135-hour training course in Baltimore, MD, in order to become a Certified Lymphedema Therapist (CLT). In addition to learning specific lymphedema treatment techniques and strategies for patient education, Amanda was able to network with occupational and physical therapists from around the country. She is excited to apply her new skills during her Fieldwork II placement.

Poster presented at ILOTA conference On October 26, 2013, Sara Ellena, Virginia Chu, and Amanda Miller, all students in the class of 2014, presented their poster "Use of Nintendo Wii in Oncology Rehabilitation,” at the Illinois Occupational Therapy Association’s 2013 Annual Conference.

OT representative for Campus Insights presentation PhD student Danbi Lee was chosen to contribute to a Campus Insights presentation which will be shown to University of Illinois Board of Trustees, senior university administration, donors, alumni and elected officials on January 22, 2014. This presentation will showcase the research of faculty and graduate students creating social impact and transforming communities. Danbi was nominated to represent our college, the UIC College of Applied Health Sciences, for her work on community participation among people with disabilities.

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Illi-SOTA Happenings Illi-SOTA has enjoyed a very busy and meaningful fall semester thus far. Since the beginning of the school year, members have participated in various volunteer events around the city, including the NAMI Walk in Grant Park to raise awareness about mental illness (pictured at left). They also contributed their cooking skills toward another successful bake sale, where they shared delicious sweet treats and engaged with UIC and community members to increase awareness of the field of OT. The money raised will provide support to many of the first- and second-year students to attend the upcoming ILOTA Annual Conference. Other events included helping organize the El Valor facilities in the Pilsen neighborhood and volunteering with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago at the Willis Tower's SkyRise Chicago event.

UIC OT alumna proud to serve her country Staci Molinar, MS ’12 (second from right), is currently serving as an active duty occupational therapist in the United States Army Medical Department Specialty Corps. For the next two years she will be stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX, completing her doctorate of science in occupational therapy.

The program pairs clinical rotations with an independent research project, and prepares occupational therapists to serve soldiers in military hospitals, outpatient clinics, and even on the front lines. Once Staci has completed this program, she hopes to continue her service at Landstuhl Regional Army Medical Center in Germany.

OT 1961 graduates awarded for loyalty Alumnae Corky Glantz (left) and Nancy Richman, both BS ’61, received the AHS Loyalty Award at the College of Applied Health Sciences Alumni and Faculty Awards Dinner, held May 4 during Alumni Weekend 2013. For more than 30 years, Nancy and Corky have been providing guest lectures, working with OTD students, and serving as expert resources for faculty on gerontology and private practice. We are grateful for their support and pleased that their efforts were recognized by our college.

Nominations for the 2014 AHS alumni awards are open now!

Nominate yourself or alumni you admire at www.ahs.uic.edu!

PROGRESS

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Faculty News National Children’s Study Susan Magasi, assistant professor, will join the National Children’s Study. The National Children’s Study is funded as a part of the Children’s Health Act and will follow a group of 100,000 children from birth to age 21 (a longitudinal cohort study) in order to help identify the impact that environmental factors have on children’s health and well-being. As a co-investigator and scientific facilitator in the Health Measurement Network, she will help identify when, what and how to measure motor function in children as they develop from birth to adulthood. This study provides an exciting opportunity to integrate occupational therapy expert knowledge into a major longitudinal study. For more information about the National Children’s Study, go to www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov.

Chancellor’s Discovery Fund grant received Assistant professor Mansha Mirza is primary investigator on a study selected to receive a $40,000 pilot grant from the UIC Chancellor’s Discovery Fund for Multidisciplinary Research. It was one of only five projects to receive funding from 33 applications submitted in 2013. The project, “Lost in Translation: The Role of Language Translators in Cross-Cultural Substance Abuse Communication with Refugee Communities,” will addresses a topic that is directly related to health care for vulnerable populations.

Cultural sensitivity virtual chat and early childhood transitions webinar On July 9, clinical assistant professor Ashley Stoffel presented on the subject of cultural sensitivity during AOTA’s monthly Pediatric Virtual Chat. She also facilitated and presented a webinar on the subject of OT and early childhood transitions that drew the participation of more than 100 people (OT practitioners and other stakeholders) from across the U.S. and the world. The webinar was co-hosted by the AOTA Early Intervention Workgroup, of which Ashley is a member, and the IDEA Partnership’s Cradle to College and Career Practice Group, which Ashley co-leads. In May 2013, Ashley represented AOTA at the national meeting of the IDEA Partnership’s Community of Practice on Transition in Charlotte, NC.

Multiple Sclerosis Task Force Clinical associate professor Kathy Preissner will participate in the Illinois Multiple Sclerosis Task Force, a partnership between state government, health professionals, and MS activists. The task force will issue a report to the governor by December 2015 with recommendations about how best to address the unmet needs of the approximately 20,000 people living with MS in Illinois.

OT interventions for cancer survivors Clinical assistant professor Robin Newman presented "OT Interventions for Common Problems in Survivors: Cancer Related Fatigue, Mild Cognitive Impairment and Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy" on October 26. The presentation was part of Harvard Medical School's course, "Advances in Cancer Rehabilitation and Survivorship Care.”

AOTA Terry Brittel OTA/OT Partnership Award Joy Hammel from OT and Robin Jones from The Great Lakes ADA Center, housed in our college’s Department of Disability and Human Development, were chosen to receive the 2014 AOTA Terry Brittel OTA/OT Partnership Award for their focus on community living and participation, advocacy and systems change. This award is given to occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants who exemplify collaborative partnership.

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A Semester in Photos [Right] OT student YeYe Oke ’15 (in blue) with Aimee Ramirez, legislative assistant to Congresswoman Robin Kelly, at AOTA Capitol Hill Day.

[Above] UIC OT students enjoying sunny San Diego at the AOTA annual conference.

[Above] UIC OT students share their knowledge and passion for occupational therapy with interested high school students at UIC’s Open House In October.

[Right] Illi-SOTA members hard at work helping to organize community agency El Valor.

[Above] OT faculty with Kjersti Vik (second from left), associate professor of occupational therapy at SørTrøndelag University College, Norway. Vik visited UIC to discuss opportunities for research collaborations and student exchanges.

Announcements Aimee Thompson ’14 won a Laurette Kirstein International Student Scholarship, one of only five given throughout UIC, for academic excellence.

Marlen Garcia ’14 was awarded one of five graduate-level Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarships. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Program was established at UIC in 1985 to honor African-American, Latino/a, and Native-American UIC students who have demonstrated high academic achievement and commitment to community and campus service.

UIC Hospital clinician Vanessa Maziero Barbosa taught a two-day workshop on the Test of Infant Motor Performance (TIMP) to a group of 25 therapists. She presented the 15.5-hour course in Salvador, Brazil.

PhD student Jenna Heffron received an Albert Schweitzer Fellowship for 2013-2014. As part of the fellowship, she is conducting a service-learning project in partnership with the Empowered Fe Fes, a young women's disability advocacy group housed at Access Living in Chicago.

Virginia Chu ’14 received a competitive Chicago Consular Corps Scholarship, which supports talented international students who promote diversity.

UIC Hospital welcomes two new full-time clinicians, Maria Banks George, UIC OTD ’12, and Kate Ciancio.

Editors: Britt Dunn & Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Occupational Therapy (MC 811) 1919 W. Taylor St. Chicago, IL 60612 otdept@uic.edu, www.ahs.uic.edu/ot

This issue of the UIC Department of Occupational Therapy’s Progress Notes can also be viewed online: www.ahs.uic.edu/ot.