Translating occupational therapy into Spanish
During the fall 2008 semester, four UIC doctoral students in occupational therapy
completed month-long practicums at Centro Ann Sullivan del Peru, a Peruvian
community-based teaching and research center for young and poor people with disabilities.
The South American connection was between Yolanda Suarez-Balcazar, department head of occupational therapy in the College of Applied Health Sciences, and her University of Kansas graduate-school classmate of more than two decades ago, Liliana Mayo, the Peruvian center's founder and director.
Suarez-Balcazar said, "The center has physical therapists, psychologists and special educators on staff but no occupational therapists."
So having OT students at the center provided experience for the students and helped the clinic's clients. The four students — Monica Ciukaj, Juleen Rodakowski, Dana Nadel (above, l-r) and Paula Cook (kneeling) — brought their UIC occupational-therapy knowledge to the cases.
The students had to be inventive. For example, they precisely measured, custom fit and refurbished an old wheelchair for a non-ambulatory, bedridden 12-year-old named Kevin, who, Cook said, was amazingly patient during the process. After she and her OT team completed the final adjustment, there sat Kevin, proud, smiling, upright and mobile for the first time in his young life.
"The thing is," Cook said, "you wonder how many other Kevins there are out there."
Working 10-hour days with limited resources and rudimentary Spanish skills made the human successes, like Kevin's, even more gratifying to the students.
Cook said, "As Americans, we might sometimes think that when we go to a developing country, we're going to give something to them. I found the opposite to be true. I'm bringing a lot back."
UIC's Dean Toby Tate and Suarez-Balcazar are optimistic about expanding practicum opportunities both for occupational-therapy students as well as others in the college. Multidisciplinary teams are a distinct possibility.
Suarez-Balcazar said, "I envision other students from our college — from nutrition, physical therapy, kinesiology — participating as well. Really, all Applied Health Sciences could offer, and learn, a great deal through this wonderful program."
View all in the sampling of the articles in the 2008-09 Annual Report.