OTD Newsroom

Duke OTD and DPT students and faculty recently met with students at the City of Medicine Academy's career fair on Feb. 7. 

Duke Occupational Therapy Doctorate (OTD) division faculty members MaryBeth Gallagher, PhD, and Antoine Bailliard, PhD, have launched an innovative community-based mental health non-profit. The Center for Community Connection (C4CC), led by executive director Darren Peters, an occupational therapist, will promote well-being, mental health equity, and occupational justice by enhancing participation in meaningful activities and cultivating human social connection. 
 

Last week, I featured a few of occupational therapy's Black "elders," whose leadership, education, and scholarship were like stories that illumined paths that, if taken, would make occupational therapy stronger. Paths, for example, toward desegregation and attending to diversity and health disparities; paths toward addressing community health and wellness through occupation, generating robust evidence and theory supporting the effects of occupation on health.

Have you considered volunteering as a student representative within the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA)? Let us know! We would love to feature your effort(s) and encourage OTD peers to have an active ‘voice’ within OT professional organizations.
 

For occupational therapy, Black History Month is an excellent time to celebrate the profession’s Black elders and their transformative wisdom. I use the term elder instead of leader because it implies a particular place of honor. Elders tell stories from their lived histories that illuminate areas of professional growth. Elders are mentors who tell us what we need to know when we need to understand it; their stories call the profession deeper into its potential.

Consider donating to the new OTD Textbook Lending Library with any occupational therapy textbooks you no longer use. This system allows current OTD students to check out donated textbooks as supplemental resources for coursework and fieldwork experiences.  

If you want to donate textbooks to the Lending Library, please drop them in the collection boxes in IPE 2214 and Erwin 212 (off the CORE Lab). We will collect donations for the next few weeks. 

What a fun night celebrating our program's accreditation! I hope you enjoyed the festivities at our dinner event last night at the Lakewood Social venue. It was great to have all three cohorts together in one place to celebrate a milestone that opens doors for all of us and future generations of Duke OTD students.  

I encourage you to view the image gallery capturing the smiles and energy from last night. 

On Wednesday, Feb. 7, from 1-3 p.m. in the TBL classroom, join us as we make “Feelie Hearts” for our community partner, the Duke Outpatient Clinic.

Chaplain Katherine Henderson will share stories of giving these little symbols of care (“comfort you can carry”) to patients and family members during times of crisis and joy.

Congratulations to Tomeico Faison, OTD, OTR/L, Assistant Professor in Orthopaedic Surgery, and Bianca Randleman, OTD-S, Class of 2025, who were named co-presidents for the North Carolina Black Occupational Therapist Collective (NCBOTC) e-board.

• Feasibility and Validity of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine’s Visual Symptoms and Signs Screen: A Pilot Study. Roberts, P., Wertheimer, J., Ouellette, D., Hreha, K., Watters, K., Fielder, J., Graf, M., Weden, K., Rizzo, Jr. (2024). Topics in Geriatric Rehabilitation.