(Under)Representation Series: Occupational Therapy

Make use of the rare opportunity to hear a highly underrepresented voice in Occupational Therapy, learn about his very unexpected path into his career, and brainstorm strategies that all of us, whether in healthcare or not, can utilize to increase the recruitment and retention of underrepresented OTs.

Learning Objectives:

1. Recognize and understand the importance of listening to the diverse voices of an underrepresented healthcare field, such as occupational therapy. 
2. Analyze and brainstorm the various barriers to recruitment and retention of underrepresented OTs.
3. Examine how the lessons learned from OT can be utilized to foster diversity and inclusion in all healthcare fields and enhance opportunities for underrepresented groups in all professions.

Credits:

Guest: Daniel Alison, ODT                                                                                                      Host/Co-Executive Producer: Dr. Maggie Kozman                                                          Executive Producer: Dr. Tammy Lin                                                                                Co-Executive Producer: Dr. Pooja Jaeel                                                                                Senior Producer: Dr. Dirk Gaines                                                                                      Managing Producer: Joanna Jain                                                                                    Production Assistants: Clara Baek, Ann Truong, Sanika Walimbe                        Website/Art Design: Ann Truong                                                                                    Music: Chris Dingman https://www.chrisdingman.com

Connect with us on Instagram at @thedayshift.pod and via email at thedayshifthealthcare@gmail.com

Transcript

[00:00] Maggie Kozman: Welcome to The DEI Shift, a podcast focusing on shifting the way we think and talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion in healthcare. I'm Dr. Maggie Kozman, a Medicine/Pediatrics dual hospitalist and Co-Executive Producer of The DEI Shift. For this episode, I'm excited to start a longitudinal series we'll be doing on underrepresentation in the many healthcare professional fields.

We'll be learning from a number of guests about representation and underrepresentation of racial, ethnic, and gender groups in their fields – which by and large is worse off than it is for physicians, unfortunately. We know that there's so much research that shows that having a diverse healthcare workforce is paramount to achieving equitable care of the highest quality for all of our patients and for fighting health disparities.

We also know that having more diverse representative healthcare teams leads to greater ingenuity in those teams and to dollars saved by the healthcare system. So just as it is a huge concern for physicians, it's also a huge concern in each of the other fields of healthcare. This episode will be focusing on one of the branches of rehabilitative medicine, occupational therapy.

My friend Daniel Allison is an occupational therapist working in San Diego, California, where we met through our church when I was completing my residency in San Diego. He works in acute care with hospitalized patients, as well as in a skilled nursing facility. And he also has experience as the director of rehab for a very large independent living facility in San Diego.

Daniel and I talked about him being on The DEI Shift years ago when The DEI Shift was first getting started. And he's an experienced podcast creator and host himself, and now has expanded into other types of media. And I'm so glad we finally have been able to make it happen for you to be on The DEI Shift, Daniel.

[01:49] Daniel Alison: Yeah. Thanks for having me on your podcast. I still get nervous, even though like I'm in different types of media. Now I come, I'm a guest on anyone else's show. I still get pretty nervous just because, I don't know, you don't want to mess up.

[02:03] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, totally. Before we get started talking about your experiences, we like to ask each of our guests on The DEI Shift podcast to share something with our listeners about themselves. And this can be something like a hobby, a favorite food, or a meaningful experience of yours. That helps us get to know you better and your background and to flex our cultural humility muscles. So we call this our step in your shoes segment. So Daniel, what would you like to share with us in the audience today?

[02:43] Daniel Alison: So I own three different companies other than just being an OT I own two off road clothing companies, and then I have a real estate investment company. And yeah, it keeps me busy. On top of that, I have a 2 year old and a baby on the way. So I'm going be full on busy.

[03:03] Maggie Kozman: Yeah I had no idea you were doing all of this on top of a full time OT career, which is very impressive to me. And congratulations on your upcoming baby.

[03:12] Daniel Alison: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[03:14] Maggie Kozman: So exciting. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that about yourself and giving us a little window into what your life is like. I'd like to open up our conversation by asking if you can start by telling us a bit about how you self identify. Race, ethnicity, gender, and then what your day-to-day life looks like as an occupational therapist.

[03:42] Daniel Alison: Yeah, so I would categorize myself as like a black American male and an occupational therapist, but yeah, it's my day-to-day. So I basically get in early 7:30 and start doing my chart reviews and see who's on your schedule. Not every OT does this, like most health care workers may not do this either, but I personally like to go in and check on each one of my patients, introduce myself so that the first time I'm meeting them isn't when I'm walking into the room to treat them. And so I just give a breakdown of what we'll be doing. Kind of like, what is, because everyone thinks occupational, like they think job or something like that. And then I spend the first part of my mornings, whether i'm in meetings or seeing patients and then the afternoon is just a lot of documentation.

[04:42] Maggie Kozman: Okay. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. I love that you go in and introduce yourself to all your patients at the start of the day before you actually go in for the therapeutic time with them. I think that sets the stage a lot differently maybe than what the majority of patients experience when the first time they're meeting you is when you're coming in to make them get out of bed or do something that's painful or hard or that they don't want to do at the moment. So I think that's really cool.

[04:58] Daniel Alison: And you get a much higher participation rate when you do that. At least I've noticed throughout my career.

[05:03] Maggie Kozman: That's great. That's really awesome. Can you share with us about what your path into occupational therapy was? Like, how did you first hear that it was even a job or a career. What made you go into it?

[05:15] Daniel Alison: Yeah, so to start with I think I should start with what made me go into it was when I was 18, I was hit by a truck, and I was paralyzed from the waist down. And so I was only paralyzed partially for a partial amount of time. And so there's a lot of rehab, and then 2 months later, my mom was in a car accident. And she fractured her back and the doctors told both of us that we had very small chances of walking normally again. And so we were doing our rehab together. So I was very familiar at that point with physical therapy and occupational therapy. And so that was like my first introduction of what is PT and OT?

And then as far as why I became an OT, that was actually by accident. A lot of people don't know this, but I had got into [one particular institution] for PT. And I saw how much it costs and I was like, well, I can never afford that no matter like how much scholarship or there's just not enough money to help me afford that. And so I had also applied to a university for physical therapy. And so I jokingly switch my application over because I remember I went for a visit day and I didn't know she was the dean of OT at the time, but she kept pestering me about "Oh, come to OT; we need male OTs." I was like, "Yeah, sure. I'm not coming here anyways. Sure, why not switch my application over to OT? I don't care." And then when I found out the price of [the other institution], I was like I'll just go with my 2nd option. My parents had just moved to San Marcos. So I was like, oh, I'll live with my parents, save some money and go to school. That's the university I had forgotten that my application that I allowed the Dean to switch over my application. And yes, that was a surprise my first day. My little bag said "Occupational Therapy." And I said, "Oh yeah, that happened!" And that's how I became an OT.

[07:12] Maggie Kozman: [laughter] Wow! I did not know that!

[07:15] Daniel Alison: Yep.

[07:17] Maggie Kozman: That's really funny! Wow. Okay. That took so many turns, that story. I did not know about your accident and also your mom's. That's really powerful and scary. I imagine at the time and then so much work that went into both of your recoveries. And I'm so grateful that both of you were able to rehab so well and surpass the prognosis that you guys got.

[07:42] Daniel Alison: Yeah, it was tough just cause, especially cause I had like a full ride scholarship to play football and that was gone within an instant.

[07:49] Maggie Kozman: Wow. I mean, that's like life changing obviously. And I imagine that helps you empathize with patients who've gone through similar types of experiences where things are totally different and then you're the one or one of the people on the team that's trying to help them rebuild their life.

[08:09] Daniel Alison: Oh, yeah, it definitely gives you a little bit of credibility with patients knowing that, like, you've been the person in the bed and every day starts to blur together the longer you're in the hospital. So it's, it's easy to connect with patients in that way.

[08:23] Maggie Kozman: Yeah. Wow. That's really awesome. Huge props for all the work that you do and for sticking with occupational therapy too, even though you were not initially intending to, to go into it. Did you know what an OT was before your accident?

[08:41] Daniel Alison: Yeah, I had worked in the acute as an aid while I was in grad school, so I had a pretty good idea of what PT and OT did. And but at the time, like my whole mindset was like, I just want to help people. And I don't think life brings mistakes. And so I was like, if this is the route I'm supposed to go, then this is it.

[09:02] Maggie Kozman: That's really cool. That's awesome. Super interesting to hear. And I'm really grateful to hear some of the things about you that I didn't know. And a lot of what you shared is actually mirrored in the data about OT demographics in the literature. So we've linked a lot of these resources in our show notes for our listeners to review, but I wanted to pull a few key learning points from the literature to discuss with you now, some of which you already brought up on your own. In terms of our demographics, as of the most recent data from 2019, the American Occupational Therapy Association, or AOTA, which is the OT equivalent of The ACP, which sponsors our podcast for the American College of Physicians for Internal Medicine. According to 2019 data from AOTA, about 84% of OTs self-identify as nonHispanic White, 4% Black, which is a decrease from 8% over 10 years before in 2004. And this data is now 5 years old, so perhaps things have gotten a little bit better since then, but not by much based on what I can see in the literature.

And the percentages for trainees in Occupational Therapy are somewhat better, especially in OT assistant programs; less better in the master's or doctoral programs for OT. But even in the OT assistant programs, it's still 71% White and 85% non-Hispanic.

And then, in terms of male, female distribution, only about 10% of OT practitioners, as well as students in the OT assistant, masters, and doctoral programs, self-identify as male.

So you mentioned that Dean in the school that you ended up going to was really trying to recruit a male into OT, and that statistic of only 10% male was really shocking to me. I didn't expect it to be that disproportionately low.

[10:52] Daniel Alison: Yeah. It's one of those things where, if I wish you guys could have been there when she was trying to convince me to be an OT, because it was almost like she was begging. And I was like who is this lady? I didn't know she was the Dean at the time. I was like, wow, she really really wants men in this program. And I was like sure, whatever. And also you were right about those statistics of so, in my observation, the occupational therapy assistance, there's a lot more diversity and the assistance that I've noticed than like OTs and PTs. But in assistance, there's a lot more diversity I've noticed. With OTs, it's predominantly just women and there's not a whole lot of people of color as for OTs.

[11:38] Maggie Kozman: Yeah. Do you feel like you have a sense of why that is, that it's becoming more diverse in the assistance, but not necessarily in the masters or doctoral so far?

[11:49] Daniel Alison: It comes down to affordability of a program if you're going to grad school to become an OT, you're looking at least $150,000, and then the CODA programs are usually anywhere from 10-40 grand, and and price wise, it's significantly less, and so a lot of people go that route, especially if you come from a demographic that is lower income. You kind just go where you can afford. And so that's what I've noticed, especially being a black male OT, I'm what they call like a bit of a unicorn in my field. I've never actually met another black male OT.

[12:24] Maggie Kozman: Wow. You've never met another black male OT.

[12:27] Daniel Alison: And I've been to a few conferences and still nothing.

[12:30] Maggie Kozman: Yeah. Wow. That is hard to imagine being like literally the unicorn in your field. How have you processed that, dealt with that, sought out mentorship from people who clearly don't look like you

[12:45] Daniel Alison: In terms of mentorship, you just give up on trying to find someone who looks like you or have been through what you've been through. You just go for whoever is like, I don't know that, that you can learn from and regardless of what they look like or their background or ethnicity. And so it's just, you just got to go with whoever's there, which there, there are plenty of good OTs. Shout out to my mentor, Jeff Steckler. He's a really good OT. He owns a bunch of clinics in Central California, but he's a very good mentor.

[13:17] Maggie Kozman: That's awesome. Yeah, I'm really glad to hear that you were able to find people who were able to be that support system for you and guide you along the path because navigating it on your own without knowing anyone else in the field or anyone who necessarily shares your lived experiences is really tough.

[13:37] Daniel Alison: Yeah. And there's also just a sense of because I'm the only one who may look like me, like that, I, that not that you have to be better than everyone else, but that you have to bring it every day and that you can't, there's little room for mistakes, which is unfortunate. And then you feel like you can't. Bring 90%. You have to be at 100% because you're representing not only males, but also your, whatever your ethnicity is and your race. So it's a double whammy.

[14:08] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, that's a lot of pressure.

[14:11] Daniel Alison: Yes, it is.

[14:12] Maggie Kozman: Can you share a little bit about entering the space as an OT who is Black and also male? Have you experienced different levels of prejudice, either from patients or from colleagues in rehab medicine or anything like that, whether it was, like, explicit bias or maybe implicit?

[14:31] Daniel Alison: Yeah, so just a couple examples. When I was a director, we were a third party that would come into a facility and provide therapy and we had our own floor in our own area, but they had an executive administrator there who was just blatantly discriminating against people of color specifically. I would notice it with other people – that's when I first noticed it – but then I noticed that it would happen to me. And so it's unfortunate that because I am the only 1 that looks like me most of the time that I can't, I didn't feel like I could speak up and say things or even show any type of emotion or frustration. It was more of just especially when your superiors don't look like you either. It's tough to speak how you feel or just express concern that hey, this might be going on. And it's one of those things where you just, even now, like the hospital I work at now, like our hospital is predominantly Filipino and white people. And so it's just, like I said, there's just not really a whole lot of people that look like me even there.

[15:29] Maggie Kozman: Yeah. Wow. I'm sorry to hear that you had that experience even in a supervisor, and I know that wasn't just like a one off situation, and unfortunately, it's a frequent occurrence that many people of color in healthcare experience, whether it's from colleagues or supervisors or patients, so I'm sorry to hear about that.

[15:49] Daniel Alison: No, it's okay. Unfortunately, it happens, but I think we're getting a little bit better. We're slowly moving in the right direction.

[15:54] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, I think it's been even in some of the prep I've done for the episode, just trying to learn about what progress has been made, like you were talking about. So the AOTA actually in 2006 set out what they called their Centennial Vision and then their Vision 2025, which they aimed to achieve by 2025 when they released it in 2017. Both of which were emphasizing the importance of making the field of OT more representative of the diverse patients for which OTs provide care.

But a lot of different resources have identified many barriers that have led to that being a challenge for the AOTA and just for the OT community in general. And these are barriers, some of what you've already mentioned, but barriers to their recruitment and retention of black and Hispanic or Latinx applicants into OT. Checking the boxes, general lack of awareness or early familiarity about the OT profession, so just kids not getting exposed to OT as a possibility. I know I personally did not know what OT was until I was into my higher education. And had you heard anything about PT or OT when you were like a kid growing up, or you were in high school thinking about what you might want to be when you grow up?

[17:05] Daniel Alison: No, I had never heard of it really, it's unfortunate. So I grew up in a bit of a rougher area in Palmdale, California. And they don't have career days because our high school is literally right down the street from the prison and unfortunately, a lot of people graduate to get into the wrong scene and they head straight there. And so it doesn't help that the architect of the prison is also the architect of the high school. So it looks the exact same, but it's 1 of those things. We didn't have career day. It was one of those things like you either go play sports or you just find a job or go to the junior college. And that's it. Those were really the only option. So I chose the sport route, but that's because my parents always told me from early on you need to go to college. You can't stay here.

[17:54] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, wow. So definitely having just that lack of exposure when you were young. Some of the resources mentioned that exposure to OT for people who ended up going into it usually came through interfacing with a health care practitioner, which it was reinforced for you when you were a patient working with OTs and PTs. Or people went into OT because they had a family member or a friend who were in it or told them about it. So definitely not a well established thing that kids in elementary, middle and high school are getting exposed to. And then one of the other barriers mentioned was just application screening methods for the OT programs themselves. So more programs needing to utilize a holistic screening process to really improve the representation of their students to reflect the patients that they're taking care of. The third thing was lacking financial resources, which you mentioned from your own experience, but also talking about why some of the assistant programs may be more diverse than the master's and doctoral programs and applying is expensive, but then once you get in tuition is expensive and that's similar to what a lot of medical students experience. I can definitely understand that barrier for sure.

[19:09] Daniel Alison: Yeah so a lot of people don't know the process of just getting into schools is expensive, like you mentioned. So if, let's say you apply to 10 schools, just the application itself, it's 50 to 55 dollars and then you got to take certain exams to even apply. And so that's an extra another hundred dollars. And so it just racked up continuously. And by the time you haven't even gone in or been accepted, you're already at least a little over a thousand dollars in debt in terms of just applying.

[19:41] Maggie Kozman: Yeah. And I don't know how much OT programs have returned to in person interviews, but I know pre COVID when all of the interviews for these healthcare professional programs were in person, then you paid for the flight or you paid to drive to wherever and you pay for a place to stay sometimes and or most of the time and all of the associated costs of that just adds up really quickly, especially when it's a competitive field and you have to apply to more than just a few schools.

[20:11] Daniel Alison: Yeah, I didn't even think about that like the cost of transportation. Like I know flights were, they've always been expensive. So yeah, I remember I had to fly to Philadelphia, Texas, and it was a lot.

[20:24] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, for sure. So that's a big barrier. And then 1 of the 4th barrier that was mentioned in some of the literature was just when students do go into the programs, there's just a deficiency of the support and resources that they get in order to be sustained and supported. So retention is a really big thing, and the lack of mentorship and infrastructure to help students who are there continue through the program and succeed into effective careers afterwards, and a lot of these barriers are actually similar in the UK. I found an article that talked about that perspective in the UK. And it's definitely not a US only problem.

[20:58] Daniel Alison: Yeah I was interested to hear that too in the UK just that they're facing similar issues and, but yeah, it's crazy. When I was in school, it was definitely noticeable. Like I knew I'm a bit of a rarity. I'm not going to say who, but I had a professor who told me that I didn't belong in that not because I was a male. She was just very harsh and had her prejudices. And so I remember that moment. I remember going home and thinking like the thoughts creeping, like maybe she's right, like maybe this isn't the type of field that like I meant to be in, but then you develop a chip on your shoulder. And I think that's where that comes from of wanting to be the best or having to prove yourself.

[21:42] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, wow, that's ridiculous. And it was race based that she was saying that you said it wasn't because you're

[21:48] Daniel Alison: Yeah, because she was very friendly with the 2 other males that were in our class and our cohort. There was like 30, only 35 people get in her core cohort and got 2 of those are those people were males and she loved them. But I noticed, I always noticed she would grade me a little harder, which meant I had to be flawless, but it just made me better at the end of the day. But when she said that, it clicked in and she said it in front of another student and the student was just like, you can see their jaw dropped. And so it was just 1 of those things where I was like, okay it's just a little bit of a wake up call.

[22:26] Maggie Kozman: Yeah. Who can blame people for not going into a field if that's the environment that they face and obviously that's not true of every program and of every person in every program. But when people are experiencing things like that's a huge challenge and deterrent. And even in the numbers that you just said, 3 out of 35 were male. That's about 8.6%. And then one black male, that's 2.9% of the class. So you were talking about the intersectionality of being black and being male is just such a rare combination in OT that it's led to you being the only one that you are aware of. And so just like even those raw numbers just illustrates that further.

[23:08] Daniel Alison: Yeah, and there's also this responsibility of opening the door for others when the time comes of, I don't know, when students or people who are always interested, I always get this question a lot of oh what is OT and, like, how do I get into it? And I'm always trying to encourage people regardless of race or ethnicity, but I always definitely make a note to people who are people of color. I'm like, hey please be an OT. It's so much fun. Yeah, we definitely need people with different backgrounds.

[23:36] Maggie Kozman: That's awesome. That's really cool. And I'm glad people see you as someone that they can ask those questions to. But I also wonder, does that feel like a burden that you are like, maybe the one representative or that you experience minority tax where you feel obligated to be recruiting and especially for underrepresented groups?

[23:56] Daniel Alison: I wouldn't say it's a burden and even if I, if it was like, it's a burden, I'd gladly carry it because if I'm not going to do it, then who else will, it's like one of those things. And whenever our hospital takes photos for events and different things like that, I purposely make an effort not to get in front of the camera when they're taking photos because I know what they're going to do. They're going to put my face. We actually just got put into Newsweekly as like one of the top nine in the United States. And they're out there taking photos. I'm like, no, I don't, I know what's going to happen. You're going to put me on the front and say like something about diversity when that's not the case. So I try to avoid that when that happens.

[24:36] Maggie Kozman: Wow. Yeah. That's real. And that's the experience of people of color when they're vastly outnumbered that you also don't want to be tokenized, which I think is totally valid for you to feel that way. I mean, I think so much of this is so rich. I really appreciate hearing directly from your perspective, which just very clearly confirms that what the studies are showing, which are often based on direct surveys from people in the OT training path, that these things are real and direct issues that need to be addressed.

[25:17] Daniel Alison: Yeah, definitely. Like it's one of those things it's frustrating cause it's I don't know how to address it or other than starting in high school. Go to career days and even if you don't have kids at the school, go and do that so that it can just show them the options that are open for them because no one told me that I had this option until I was well out of college.

[25:38] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, I agree. I think what used to be called pipeline programs, but now the more appropriate term is pathway programs, but basically teaching kids about various healthcare careers early on, especially the ones that are less known about. I think they hear a lot about doctors and a lot about nurses. And of course, we need more representation in all fields, so I'm not knocking that by any means. I was at a high school this morning trying to recruit underrepresented kids into whatever healthcare career might spike their interest, but I mentioned physical and occupational therapy. And not all of them know what that is, especially OT. And like you said, that just the term occupational gets misinterpreted a lot to mean job or something that is not what the actual field is. So yeah, getting kids exposed at an early age, just to even know that it's an option, that it's a thing that exists without them necessarily having to be a patient for an OT before they interact with one.

[26:32] Daniel Alison: Yeah, and so there's definitely a lot of programs out there for financial assistance that I just didn't look once again. I just didn't know about when I was that age. No one ever told me that.

[26:42] Maggie Kozman: Yeah

[26:43] Daniel Alison: Definitely research. And if you, I would say this to any health care professional. It is our obligation, I would say, to do that, to reach out and to bring in people that have different backgrounds because I don't know if there's no quote. If everyone in the room is thinking the same thing that no one's thinking at all. And if we want to break that mold, it's we have to bring in different people with different backgrounds that look different.

[27:06] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, I like that. That's a really good quote. I like that a lot. And true to both of our experiences and I would guess most of our listeners experiences too. When you've got a group of people in a room that have different perspectives, different experiences leads to different perspectives and different opinions about things, different ways to problem solve an issue. One of the other strategies for improving the diversity of the workforce specifically in OT came out of an article in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy in 2021. And that suggestion was that a mandate should be included in the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education, so the ACOTE, which accredits OT programs, and they suggested that mandate require programs to document efforts that they are making to recruit and retain students from diverse, racial and ethnic backgrounds. So I looked a little bit into it, and I did see that the ACOTE actually has made that change. So that article as referencing the 2018 accreditation standards, and the article is written in 2021. And then the 2023 accreditation standards actually do have a mandate that all different types of programs, OT assistant, masters and doctoral programs have documented effort of how they're recruiting and retraining a diverse student body. So that's a really awesome, positive change to see. Of course, as these changes take, it takes a few years, but I was surprised and excited that I found that updated accreditation standard and that it had implemented that to at least hold programs accountable in the way that they're recruiting and supporting their students.

[28:37] Daniel Alison: Yeah, I thought that was really cool. It's funny when I read that earlier, I legit, my first, I was like where was that when I was in school?

[28:45] Maggie Kozman: Yeah.

[28:46] Daniel Alison: But it's good to see that. It's better late than never. It's good to see and it just means that we're taking steps forward. We're moving forward, so I like to see that.

[28:56] Maggie Kozman: Yeah, whatever progress we can make, it's encouraging and it helps us build momentum for sure. I also was learning a little bit about some organizations that I hadn't heard about before. So within OT, one of the organizations is called the Multicultural Diversity and Inclusion Network, and that is a network between a couple of different, already existing organizations. So the National Black Occupational Therapy Caucus is one, and then the Network of Hispanic Practitioners is another. There's some other ones and all of them have formed this multicultural diversity and inclusion MDI network. So a lot of resources within those, including different scholarship opportunities, there's also the potential for mentorship nationally. And in more localized levels, when you connect with people and network in those organizations. And then there's the Coalition of Occupational Therapy Advocates for Diversity or COTAD. So all of these groups do some advocacy work and also provide scholarships, like I mentioned, to recruit and retain underrepresented racial ethnic minoritized groups into OT. So for all of our listeners, whether they're physicians like me, OT like you, any other health care field, and some of our listeners who are not in health care at all, who I love that you are listening. These are different organizations that we can point people to in order to really support people getting into OT, especially those who are of underrepresented backgrounds. So I'm not sure how much you've been involved with any of these organizations or if they played any role in your path, it would be cool to hear if any of these things were active during your time up into your career.

[30:32] Daniel Alison: So not for me personally, like I sign up for different things and I'm actually signed up with a couple of those actually. But no, I get the emails. I read the articles and it's just you're constantly brainstorming in terms of, like, how you can put what they're saying in these articles to fruition in real life, but education, educate yourself on these things that these articles that they put out or these newsletters that they put out. It's always good to see those.

[30:56] Maggie Kozman: Yeah. That's great. Great. Thank you so much for letting us into your world and your experience, Daniel. And for the time you spent with us, if you could give our listeners one last takeaway or pearl about your experiences and underrepresented OT what would you want to share? What do you want people to remember?

[31:13] Daniel Alison: Just bring your best self every day. Even if you're going through a lot, you're going through some hard times, like when you walk into a patient's room or you're with a patient just know that they're also going through it. And so bring your best self cause at the end of the day, like what may not seem like a big deal to you, it changes their perspective and their, the way they see not only you, but your profession and how you interact with them. Yeah, just bring your best.

[31:38] Maggie Kozman: That's really wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that. And it's been so fun to finally have you on The DEI Shift.

[31:44] Daniel Alison: Yeah, this was awesome. Thank you so much.

[31:46] Maggie Kozman: That's all the time we have for today, but we'd like to invite our listeners to join the discussion online and share your stories and experiences with underrepresentation in occupational therapy. You can send us your experiences over email at [00:32:00] thedeishift@gmail.com. That's the D E I shift or on Instagram and X with the handle @thedeishift. We will also have a transcript of this conversation along with show notes that include the resources discussed today. Don't forget to claim your CME and MOC at www.acponline.org. Stay tuned for future episodes, especially in this longitudinal series on underrepresentation.

Disclaimer: The DEI Shift podcast and its guests provide general information and entertainment, but not medical advice. Before making any changes to your medical treatment or execution of your treatment plan, please consult with your doctor or personal medical team. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by The DEI Shift. The views expressed by guests are their own, and their appearance on the podcast does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by The DEI Shift team are those of each individual, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of The DEI Shift team and its guests, employers, sponsors, or organizations we are affiliated with.