FOXcast OT: How Mentorship Guides Clinical Development

This is FOXcast OT. A podcast for clinicians made by clinicians. It’s brought to you by FOX rehabilitation. Find out more at FOXRehab.org.

Jimmy McKay, PT, DPT: Welcome to FOXcast OT. I’m your host Jimmy McKay and we are talking with Eric Sheridan. Eric welcome to the program.

Eric Sheridan, MS, OTR/L: Hey Jimmy how’s it going.

Jimmy: Doing all right. I always like to ask. Where do you practice since FOX rehabilitation is in I don’t even know how many states right now because we keep growing. But where do you where you get to practice.

Eric: So I’m in South Philadelphia venturing a little bit more into Center City but south Philly is basically my bread and butter.

Jimmy: How long you been with the practice?

Eric: I’ve been with FOX as an OT for two years. Since 2017 but I was originally an EP from 2012 to 2014.

Jimmy: So that’s kind of what we want to talk about which is two years is an interesting time period to be with the practice. But let’s jump into what you just mentioned as you went from being an exercise physiologis.t so FOX Rehabilitation PT’s OT’s SLP’s obese and let’s not forget our EP’s. What made you make the transition what about that?

Eric: Well my plan originally was to be a physical therapist. You know an opportunity presented itself to work with FOX is an EP. So that’s what I chose to do build some experience always with the goal to go back to grad school. But then it was at FOX as an EP is where I was exposed to OT. And I really just kind of fell in love with the task based orientation of it with the older adults. There’s a little bit different than PT but I just kind of geared more towards it looked into it shadowed more different settings and kind of fell in love with OT.

Jimmy: I love I love here and those like I call the superhero backstories of like you knew exactly what was going to happen and then life happened and took this cool turn and now look where you are exactly. So being with FOX Rehabilitation as an OT for two years now. Congratulations.

Eric: Thank you.

Jimmy: We talk a lot about students and newly graduated professionals just out of out at a school and we talk about seasoned clinicians but you’re in that in-between period which is you’ve been around the block long enough and the block in Center City yeah Philly. So you’ve got some experience under your belt but you know you’re still looking to do more so what do you want to look for in terms of looking back at your first two years?

Eric: So it was a really good two years. You know my goals coming out within the new grad program was a really you know try to become as clinically excellent as I could. Develop my clinical tool belt. Learn from a lot of different clinicians around me. Learn from Brett who is my mentor. And just really get that down get my documentation and try to get that down as best as possible in my you know diversify my care for you know see as many different types of patients as I could and now going forward. I kind of want to see the next step and you know start becoming a guy just was a fieldwork educator from my first level two student. Awesome. Hopefully I get a couple of mentees in the next couple couple months.

Jimmy: So let’s not skip past something you’ve got something really interesting I want to dive into. Especially for our practice model specifically with FOX Rehabilitation is you’re autonomous. You’re on your own you’re on the community and you mention that mentorship and learning from a lot of different clinicians a lot of professors might say to a model like FOX to their students. Well you don’t want to do that because you don’t get the mentorship and experience. How do you do that because apparently some people say you don’t get that with FOX?

Eric: I think that’s that’s kind of falsely the notion because I mean if you attend the you know the meetings are required but then the extra stuff. If you have you do that and just you know talk to the clinicians you know at FOX. And that’s where the most the collaboration comes in and like you know bounce ideas. That’s I’ve always tried to you know attend those the happy hours or the team building events because you get to talk to clinicians that do what we do and there’s not like it’s where you know we’re specialty. Being able to bounce ideas off each other and those type of settings has proven to be you know where I learned the most from.

Jimmy: It seems like that is often overlooked. As you mentioned is that culture is you’re not handed a laptop in a caseload said go. Yeah you know you’re you’re not tossed into that so to hear you say the thing that you loved about your first two years was the mentorship and the experience to learn. That’s great. What else in the first two years?

Eric: Figuring out how to use my personality and the build out therapeutic relationship with the patients you know really cut trying to become creative with my interventions within the home and really trying to hone in on what’s important to those patients.

Jimmy: How are you going to seek that out get more creative what what sort of resources you mentioned people which I always go to first and that’s the best thing. What other the things really excite you in terms of how to enhance yourself what are you gonna do going to seek out your next two years?

Eric: I mean that’s like why I’m here. You know I want to. Like that’s what I’m here for. You know I’m really like bouncing ideas off of a lot of smart people. There are a lot of smart people in this room right.

Jimmy: And we’re seeing here right now. Yeah. At AOTA’s conference in New Orleans Yeah.

Eric: Attending some likes you know doing the CEU’s on Medbridge has been really beneficial. And that’s a great thing that FOX offers as well. And just you know just And you know learning from my students. You know you forget things you know that you know they might be able to bring to the table. Like why would I learn from my level 2 student in the last three months she was able like. Because they’re so you know what their evidence based practice they’re entrenched in that so they can really bring those type of things to FOX. And to you or you know a clinical tool belt.

Jimmy: So talk about being a CI. I mean you’ve been a clinician for two years and now you get to kind of get to put the CI kind of hat on and help another student. What was that experience like?

Eric: So in the beginning it was more challenging than I expected. Only because I have to tell myself that I learn things differently than you know how my students want to learn. You know we all have different learning styles all of different teaching styles so it’s just important to be able to communicate and try to you know figure out what’s the best collaboration approach. So the first couple weeks was kind of like a feeling out process.

Jimmy: Which is a lot like working with a client you know going out how this person learns and accepts information.

Eric: My student had great ideas. She’s smart very OT centric very client centered. She just needs a little bit like a little bit of pep and help with her confidence and being able to apply that with the patients. And by the end of the 12 weeks she was doing great. It’s also a lot of great feedback from patients and how she have helped and how she was she was an asset so that was great. That’s awesome. It was great to see her growth.

Jimmy: What would you say to to someone out there who’s who’s looking at a particular practice model like FOX and saying here’s here’s why you should do it or what type of person should be drawn?

Eric: I would say you know if you’re a confident person that loves to learn loves to grow loves you know working with patients in their home environment. You know being able to impact a person on a one on one level is huge. You know being able you know help a family out make their lives easier. And then also have your own autonomy that you know that you know that no one’s over your back no one’s breathing down your throat you know to get a productivity like it’s it’s a very you know. I feel very comfortable with what I do I’ve always feel happy at the end of the day being an OT. Yeah it’s real big. I feel challenged but I don’t feel overwhelmed ever. And I never fee that l I don’t have the support in case that you know I did do feel overwhelmed.

Jimmy: Tradition on the show is called your FOXtale. OK. We heard a little bit of why you decided to transition from EP to OT specifically but why older adults you had to start with an organization like FOX as an EP what about older adults really excited you?

Eric: OK. So older adults have always been part of my life. You know I’m fortunate that my my grandparents are actually pretty young. They’re actually I’m 29 and my grandpa’s are 68. Wow. So and then I actually knew my great grandparents because of that. And so you know as a very young kid older adults are always in my life. And as I grown and you know kind of see how our society kind of treats older adults you know that kind of bothers me. You know I feel that they’re not treat us as well as they should be. You know they work their whole lives and then just I feel like our society in general I’m speaking kind of cast them aside or feels like you know they’re they don’t have any worth. And I think that’s just ageism and it’s not what I like. You know that’s kind of what motivated me. You know I always feel like I can. I want to help those people that feel left behind.

Jimmy: Love it. Perfect. Eric thanks for taking the time to talk to us.

Eric: I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to FOXcast OT. A clinically excellent podcast. It’s brought to you by FOX rehabilitation. FOX clinicians work hard love their work and get the respect they deserve. Sound good? Then you’ll love the autonomy to work in your own style and the support you get to achieve excellence. Plus freedom and flexibility to have a personal life whether it’s your first day or you’ve been around for a while. Your contribution is acknowledged and rewarded. That’s what makes FOX a success. Happy well-trained clinicians make great health care. Are you a fit for FOX? Find out now at FOXRehab.Org.