Connecting with Allie has been an absolute blessing. You may know her better as @patchesofot and the host of the Patches of OT podcast. Her content is super unique and deeply personally engrained. This engrained passion is what initially drew me to her. We discuss all things trauma and her experience she had through researching it through her doctorate. 

If you don’t already, jump on and follow Allie on insta and also give her podcast a listen!

Look after yourself, look after others and always keep Occupied

Brock
@brockcookOT
brock.cook@me.com

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Transcript

Brock Cook 0:01
Hi, and welcome to a brand new episode. This episode, I sat down with the wonderful Allie Watkins, you may know her on Instagram as patches of OT, her Capstone for her doctorate program was around looking at essentially the the vicarious trauma caused in a forensic nursing setting in an emergency department. And so we delve into that, and what lessons may be learned for Occupational Therapists from that as well. I will preface this by saying that we do talk broadly about a variety of different traumas that we’re seeing through that emergency department. If that is something that triggers you, then please feel free to skip this one and hang out for the next episode. But it is a very valuable learning experience. And I thank Ollie a ton for coming on and having the conversation with me. So let’s roll the intro. Get a My name is Brock Cook, and welcome to occupied. In this podcast, we’re aiming to put the occupation in occupational therapy. We explore the people topics, theories and underpinnings that make this profession so incredible. If you’re new here, you can find all of our previous episodes and resources at occupied podcast.com. But for now, let’s roll the episode.

Allie Watkins 1:33
That’s a great question. I started out at my bachelor’s degree studying Science Technology and Society, which is a degree pretty much for the unknown. And I was going to be a it is very, very broad. And so my goal and undergrad was to become a pediatric oncologist, a doctor. But I went through a lot of life events that made me reconsider. One was in high school. I helped a victim drown, and it was a friend of mine. And I thought it was a sign of that I need to get into the health field. And I developed PTSD. from that situation, I didn’t know that I developed PTSD. And so I went years having these symptoms and thinking that there was something wrong with me. And I was like, How can I be a medical doctor if I am triggered by saving someone’s life. And so I started reconsidering, you know, what I’m going to do for my career. And my aunt currently at the time was working at an OT program, and she’s like, you should do occupational therapy. And he said, I have no idea what that is. I am not interested.

Brock Cook 2:56
No, not like PT,

Allie Watkins 2:57
like I was the no one knows. And she said, You know, they work with kids, they work with adults. They even can work with cancer patients. And I was so interested in that. And I was like, Huh, so I started researching it my senior year of college. And, you know, I was like, wow, this is sounds exactly what I wanted to do. You can, you know, then I was considering at the time PT versus OT, and I really liked how ot looked at the mind. And, you know, mental health part of it. And so, you know, having PTSD and depression and anxiety, and going through all that I was like, oh T is more my route. And I can probably help people more with those mental health issues than their physical bodies in general. And so I applied for ot school, I had to take one year break to take like anatomy courses that I never took at my undergrad school because it was pa and pharmacy driven where I went to school and so I had never had the opportunity to take the anatomy courses. And so that’s where my ot journey kind of begins.

Brock Cook 4:09
So what was the Why would you find it? I’ve not heard of someone so young having such an interesting cancer was their experience that sort of drove you to that?

Allie Watkins 4:27
Yes, when I was really young, I have a younger brother and we went to daycare. And our friend My brother’s best friend developed leukemia. And that was the first time we’ve heard what they call the C word which is cancer. And, you know, we would go to his house and play with him and he would get sick and then we would go to the Children’s Hospital here in Indianapolis called Riley’s and we would make treats for all the families who were in the oncology department. And so, the weekend before he passed, we went and visited him. And I went to the room next to him what was a cancer patient and his sister, the, the child’s sister asked me if you want to play a board game, and I said, Okay, why not. And she looked really sad when I entered the room. And then once we started playing, I think it was Candyland. a board game. She was so happy, it changed her whole outlook of the day, just to have three little girls all in one room in her hospital bed playing a board game. And from there, I said, I want to make kids happy when they’re going through such a toll of cancer. And so that moment on I knew that that’s kind of what I wanted to do.

Brock Cook 5:56
That’s beautiful.

Allie Watkins 5:59
Thank you.

Brock Cook 6:02
This Yeah, thinking about it. I’m sorry. Yeah.

Allie Watkins 6:07
I said, Just thinking about it right now. I’m like, wow, I forgot about that, like story. You know, I don’t get to talk about it that often. But it’s like, oh, you know, it does, like, bring, it’s emotional. But definitely wasn’t one of the one of the most rewarding things in my life at a young age, especially to learn and develop empathy as a child.

Brock Cook 6:31
Yeah. And that’s, that’s a, that’s a pretty heavy experience for for any kid to sort of go through. That’s why I was, it’s, I’ve not heard of anyone straight out of the gate going, like, I want to work in oncology. I’m like, that spot didn’t even know what oncology meant when I was a kid. So I would assume there was some history there. But it sounds like it was a fairly pivotal moment in your development, if even if it wasn’t to do with your career, but

Allie Watkins 7:03
Oh, definitely, I would, you know, everybody asked when you’re growing up, what do you want be when you would be an IV, like pediatric oncologist and be like, what?

Brock Cook 7:13
fireman or Superman and you want a pediatric? Yeah.

Allie Watkins 7:21
And, you know, I’m, I’m very lucky that with OT, you can work with patients, it’s, it’s hard to get into, I will say, and, but you can work with people that have an oncology department, and I hope one day that I could do that.

Brock Cook 7:37
So that’s still the goal is to work in that field.

Allie Watkins 7:44
I think so, um, you know, now that I’ve been on rotations there, like I worked a lot in outpatient pedes. And so you see, I’ve worked with a couple kids that have survived cancer. And, you know, I still am very rewarded with that I feel when you are so compassionate or passionate about population, and then you get to work with them. And then your kind of cup is filled, and you’re not as burnt out. And so, I’m working with them. I’m like, okay, like this, I also had a placement in Hippotherapy, and I loved it, there was so magical to see the kids get on the horses, and with all different diagnosis, and they felt like they were included for the first time that they could do something that other people could do. That was hard and challenging. And so I think that is also something I could see myself doing.

Brock Cook 8:40
I’m sure there’s probably even areas we can bind to. I’d be surprised there wasn’t given the just how those caper theory how hypnotherapy works, etc.

Allie Watkins 8:57
Oh, sure, I was going to do my capstone on service animals and cancer. There’s a big research on how kids with cancer develop a high a score due to medical trauma that they are going through in all the mental health issues that they will continue to have if they survived cancer, because if you develop cancer at a young age, you’re always going to have that fear once they’re going to come back. Yep. And so being, you know, an OT, to help kind of work through that trauma. And usually when people are impacted at such a young age with trauma, they are they like lack social skills, they lack the ability to just have those developmental milestones meet. And so I think it would be super, super interesting to have an OT who specializes in animal assisted therapy and then oncology to help with that gap.

Brock Cook 9:58
So with the Just thinking about all what you just said then about how kids who develop cancer, when they, when they, when they’re kids, obviously, when they’re younger, tend to have this sort of constant fear about when it’s coming back. Was there any sort of, I guess, similar fear but vicariously for you going through the experience you had with your brother’s friend? Did you sort of develop this, like all it could happen to me kind of, I guess fear at a young age. Oh,

Allie Watkins 10:31
oh, totally. I like I constantly I actually have found cancer on my body. And so I’m a freckly girl. And so I have to get like my moles and freckles checked. And so I actua