Fieldwork
Active and applied learning is the cornerstone of the EVMS OTD program and is integrated across and in alignment with the curriculum. The fieldwork education components are co-designed by the faculty, fieldwork educators, and students and led by the program’s Academic Fieldwork Coordinator (AFWC) to ensure that active learning experiences support program learning objectives and student interests.
Fieldwork I
In their first and second years in the program, EVMS OTD students participate in over 240 hours of structured Fieldwork I experiences co-led by the AFWC, program faculty, and fieldwork educators. During their fieldwork experiences, students engage in a combination of applied coursework, simulated activities, structured community-based activities, and supervised evaluation and intervention of clients.
Faculty-led experiences in client care, followed by debriefing, aligns with each of the evaluation and intervention courses and strengthens students’ knowledge of occupation and its value in promoting health, the occupational therapy process, leadership and advocacy, and the translation of evidence to practice.
Fieldwork II
At the start of their third year, students begin their fieldwork II experiences. Fieldwork II is characterized by two twelve-week full-time experiences in occupational therapy practice in a variety of settings with individuals, communities, and populations. During their first experience, students are placed in pairs at a site in collaboration with Consortium of Associate Faculty and Fieldwork Educators.
The Consortium is integrally involved with the curriculum, courses, and student learning activities and supports an active and self-directed student learning model in the clinic. During this fieldwork experience, students collaborate with one other, the fieldwork educator, and program faculty, share learning experiences, advance reflective practice and clinical reasoning, and prepare for future collaboration as practitioners and members of a inter-professional team.
In the second fieldwork placement, students are placed in a variety of settings where they engage in delivering services to individuals, communities, and populations within a traditional apprenticeship model of professional supervision. During this fieldwork experience, students additionally participate in innovative occupation focused intervention implementation and research, program development and assessment, and education.
To learn more about the EVMS OTD Fieldwork Program or to join our Consortium of Associate Faculty and Fieldwork Educators please contact Nancy Krolikowski at
krolikNE@evms.edu.
Capstone Experience
The Doctoral Capstone is an integral part of the Doctor of Occupational Therapy Program. It is designed to allow students to synthesize their learning across the curriculum and apply that knowledge to provide in-depth exposure to one or more of the following areas of practice and scholarship: specialized clinical practice, research, administration, leadership, program and policy development, advocacy column education or theory development and address a practice and/or professional area of need. The Doctoral Capstone is completed as the final requirement for the Doctor of Occupational Therapy degree, but the experience is integrated across the curriculum.
Through a curricular focus on advanced professional reasoning and innovative practice, practice scholarship, and leadership and advocacy, students grow increasingly responsible for the completion of a collaboratively designed, student centered, mentored learning experience and project. The experience and project are designed to promote the integration of didactic and fieldwork learning to both address a gap in the provision of services or in the profession through an immersive self-directed learning experience. The doctoral experience, that begins in the first semester of a student’s professional journey in the program, provides students an opportunity to serve as an agent of change and prepares them for roles as leaders in the profession.