How to become an Occupational Therapist (OT)?

An occupational therapist is a healthcare professional who treats disabled or ill patients for enhancing their basic skills that are required for living in our day to day life. The treatment of occupational therapists is very useful for those patients who are suffering from pain, illness, injury, or disability for which it becomes difficult for them to do their day to day job or schoolwork or to complete the household work. You can find many available OT jobs in hospitals, private practices, nursing homes, physician offices, NGOs, rehabilitation centers, elementary schools, secondary schools, as well as home healthcare services.

With the treatment of an occupational therapist, the patient becomes able to do some specific things such as they can eat their food without the support of others, take part in any leisure activities, can do any kind of official work, bathe or dress on their own, and do laundry or clean their house. 

The first thing that you need to become an occupational therapist is to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Occupational Therapy (BOT) from any accredited institutes. But in most states for getting a license for practicing occupational therapists you need to earn a Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy (MOT) from an authorized institution that is fully approved by the Occupational Therapy Association of the country. But for taking admission on MOT you must acquire a 50% mark on BOT. Apart from that in most of the states you need to pay an application fee of about $500 to $540 and then clear the National Board for Certification of Occupational Therapy (NBCOT) examination. If you cannot pass the exam in one go you will get a chance to retake the exam within 45 days. Once you clear the exam and get the license you become eligible for practicing as an occupational therapist. However, you also need to renew your license from time to time. 

The occupational therapist has a good career aspect and earns a good salary. However the salary of occupational therapists varies from country to country depending on its demand. The job of an occupational therapist is never an easy task and as a healthcare professional you have to work with people of all ages starting from premature babies to young children, adults as well as senior citizens. As an occupational therapist, you have to look at how your patient can do any kind of activity or task and after that you have to develop a plan to improve them more easily or less painfully. So sometimes you may also need to visit the house of the patient and stay with them for hours for treating them. Hence you also need patient along with your skills and qualification for becoming a good occupational therapist.