David S. McGuire, OTR/L, is serving his second term as President of the 
Tennessee Occupational Therapy Association (TNOTA). He is employed as an occupational therapist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. David continues to promote the field of occupational therapy by guest lecturing at OT schools around the state of Tennessee.  He speaks on leadership and the value of being an active member in TNOTA. He is responsible for creating the OT2 Scholarship which provides a financial award for an OT or OTA student pursuing occupational therapy as a second career. 

On  this episode, David talks about his path into the field of occupational therapy as a second career.  He shares about how he first found out of OT, why he decided to take on a leadership role in OT in the state of Tennessee, and what he sees as his leadership style.

Debbie Amini, EdD, OTR/L, CHT, FAOTA, is an occupational therapist who received her BS in occupational therapy from Quinnipiac University, her MEd in curriculum instruction/supervision from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and her EdD in adult and community college education from North Carolina State University. She joined AOTA as Director of Professional Development in 2014; her previous employment experience includes clinical hand therapy practice, directing an occupational therapy assistant program and working as an assistant professor of OT in an MOT program. Dr. Amini has served in multiple volunteer leadership positions with AOTA, including hand rehabilitation subsection coordinator from 2002 to 2005, physical disabilities special interest section chairperson from 2005 to 2008, and a member of AOTA’s Commission on Practice from 2008 to 2011, and chair of AOTA Commission on Practice from 2011-2014 where she oversaw the development of the third edition of the occupational therapy practice framework: domain and process. Dr. Amini was the “Hands On” department columnist for ADVANCE for Occupational Therapy Practitioners from 1999 to 2011 and “Inside Occupation” From 2011-2014. She has authored several articles that have appeared in ADVANCE for Directors in Rehabilitation, AOTA’s Physical Diabetes Quarterly newsletter, OT Practice magazine, and the American Journal of Occupational Therapy. She has also written several online courses, several textbook chapters, and a CE course titled Hand Rehabilitation: A Client-Centered and Occupation-Based Approach. She contributed information on the hand, wrist, and forearm to Occupational Therapy Practice Guidelines for Individuals With Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses published by AOTA Press and more recently co-authored the Occupational Therapy Practice Guideline for Adults with Musculoskeletal Conditions. She currently serves on the editorial board for the Open Journal of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Therapy in Health Care. Dr. Amini has worked for three orthopedic hand surgery practices in Connecticut and North Carolina; she established hand rehabilitation departments in two of these offices. She was also instrumental in the development of the hand rehabilitation program at New Hanover Regional Medical Center, a large regional medical center in Southeastern North Carolina. She has worked with all types of UE trauma including amputations, re-plantations, tendon repair and transfer, fractures, nerve compression and repairs, cumulative trauma disorders, osteo and rheumatoid arthritis, joint reconstruction, Dupuytren's disease and traumatic injury. She has clinical expertise in splinting, wound care, and physical agent modalities. Her research interests include the transition of OT practice from a reductionist to holistic perspective, positive psychology, critical self-reflection, the role of self-efficacy and communities of practice in habilitation/rehabilitation and OT education.

Recommendations and resources from this episode:

• Resources available through AOTA such as those on the topic of documentation and CPT evaluation codes
• Artlcile written by Debbie Amini in OT Practice, Defining the Term Occupation

Connect with Debbie: 
Email - ​damini@aota.org 

Karen Jacobs, EdD, OTR/L, CPE, FAOTA, is a clinical professor of occupational therapy and the program director of the distance education post-professional occupational therapy programs at Boston University. She has expertise in the development and instruction of on-line graduate courses. In addition to being an occupational therapist, Jacobs is also a certified professional ergonomist (CPE). She has a private practice in ergonomics.  Jacobs earned her BA at Washington University in St. Louis, her MS at Boston University, and her doctoral degree at the University of Massachusetts.  Her research examines the interface between the environment and human capabilities. In particular, she examines the individual factors and environmental demands associated with increased risk of functional limitations among populations of university and middle school–aged students, particularly in notebook computing, backpack use, and games such as WiiFit. Most recently, she is co-developing, with Dr. Nancy Baker at the University of Pittsburgh, the Telerehabilitation Computer Ergonomics System (tele-CES) for computer users with arthritis. The tele-CES is a remote systematic ergonomics program aimed a substantially reducing work disability among workers with any type of arthritis.  Jacobs is the founding editor-in-chief of the international, interdisciplinary peer reviewed journal WORK: A Journal of Prevention, Assessment and Rehabilitation, which celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2010.  She is a past president and vice-president of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) as well as a 2005 recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to the University of Akureyri in Akureyri, Iceland; the 2009 recipient of the Award of Merit from the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT); and recipient of the Award of Merit from the American Occupational Therapy Association in 2003.

Connect with Karen:
By email - kjacobs@bu.edu