Keith B. McWilliams — OTD, OTR/L, DRS — OT Faculty Profile, USAHS

Keith B. McWilliams — OTD, OTR_L, DRS — OT Faculty Profile, USAHS

[00:00:00] Keith McWilliams (OT Faculty): So an occupational therapist is someone who takes a holistic approach to treating a client who is impacted, someone who maybe has a disability or maybe needs a new way of doing things. So we focus on those activities that are important to them, help them to be able to return to whatever they may want to do. So we’re helping the person rather than treating the disease or the disability that they may be dealing with. We’re helping them to turn their disabilities into abilities.

[00:00:27] I started out in oncology, so I worked at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. I was there for two years specializing in neuro treatment there. From that, I then transitioned to Pate Rehabilitation here in Dallas-Fort Worth, where I worked in a day neuro clinic. There it’s all patients with acquired brain injury. During my time there, I became a driver rehab specialist and a certified brain injury specialist. Helped to grow the driving program there at Pate Rehab, and then transitioned to Baylor Institute for Rehab and did the same thing in their day neuro program as the clinic director, and then growing and expanding the driving program.

[00:01:07] The moments when the students are starting to put the whole picture together. So we start with the foundation of teaching them what it means to be an OT, what it takes to become an OT, and then once they start to apply that knowledge and then get to a point to where they feel that they are mastering that knowledge, that means everything to us. Especially when we get information from students when they’re on their clinical placements and they tell us, “Hey, thank you so much for teaching us this material because it’s helped us to be able to be ahead of the game.”