Get Started in Hand Therapy With 3 Easy Steps
===
[00:00:00] There's some really easy ways to get into hand therapy and I wanna share them with you today. It's something that I've always heard coming up in the hand therapy world, and after 25 years, I still. I still hear it, so I want to share with you three easy steps. I'm gonna keep it really simple. My name is Wong.
I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist, and I created hand therapy secrets to really share a lot of what I've experienced, um, how I've gotten to where I've gotten and help you along the way. If you are, if you wanna be in hand therapy, right? Only helps. If you wanna be in hand therapy.
That's not true. We can help you just about anywhere, but. These are the three things, and it's not necessarily in any particular order, but I will share with you how you can use it in a particular order. Take classes, get a job, and practice literally on anybody. If you're an occupational therapist, if you're an occupational therapist assistant, if you're a physical therapist, if you're a physical [00:01:00] therapist assistant and you wanna work in the realm of hand therapy, um, one of the.
Best ways to get into hand therapy is to land that job. So you're wondering, well, how do I land that job if I don't have any clinical skills or clinical experience? Well, one of the fastest ways to get clinical knowledge and clinical experience and clinical skills is to take a class. Now you can take any class that is related to the hand and upper extremity.
One of the things I would recommend if you take a class, um, make sure it is not like super, super, super, super detailed. Um, I did that when I first started 'cause I couldn't get a job in hand therapy. And I was like, well if I increase my knowledge then I'll be able to apply for the jobs and then be able to.
You know, at least express that I know something about something. So one of the first [00:02:00] classes that I took was a risk class. Oh my God. That class, just like within the first like four hours, I couldn't understand anything and it was because they were speaking complete jargon. They were so detailed with the arthrokinematics and the biomechanics of how the skateboard supinate and pronate and this little, I was like.
Can I, can you show me what to do with that risk? So if you're thinking about taking a class, you know, do some research, find somebody who, um, maybe you resonate with, maybe there are classes coming to your area. Maybe you can take that online, but that's gonna give you very practical knowledge. So, um, take a class.
Then you can somehow say on your resume, Hey, I took these. Classes, or I took these series of classes and now I have a certain amount of experience, I just want an opportunity to work at your [00:03:00] place and be able to practice. Right? So it's, you know, some version of that. But if you take a class, number one, not only will you expand your knowledge base and learn some practical things with to do with patients, but what it does is it shows the employer, the person who's looking to hire you, that you.
S do that. You will do what you say you will do. If you're interested in hand therapy, you will take the classes and you do the things and you apply to places that allow you to do hand therapy. If you say you're interested in hand therapy and all your classes are pediatrics or geriatrics or generic classes, then that doesn't show the employer, Hey, this person is actually really dedicated, and they mean what they say.
I talk about this all the time and I hope that this is a one time you are hearing it, that it finally [00:04:00] clicks, right? Take some classes, apply for the job. Don't wait in between. Apply for the job, take the classes. You don't want a job that you will feel really shitty about, um, and not know how to do, right?
So you start applying for the jobs and you start taking those classes. You start taking those classes and you apply for the job. They go hand in hand. It's not like you're doing one. Um, and then you wait months to do the other. You're doing them in tandem because that's what gives you momentum to actually move your career forward.
And the last thing is to practice. Now I know you have two hands and two arms. You know somebody who has two hands and two arms, and part of it is when you take a class, you practice on someone. Right. You can practice on your friends, you can practice on your family member. You can practice on your patients.
When [00:05:00] I teach my manual therapy class, I always tell the students that are new, that are in acute care, that are in skilled nursing, that are in pediatrics, that work with stroke patients. If they can practice their manual therapy skills on those patients and start to see like, oh, I found your meta, your first metacarpal.
I'm mobilizing your joints. I am shortening your muscles, you know, and I'm stretching your mps, right? Anything like that. If you get really comfortable with the idea of touching someone else and affecting tissue. Once you start practicing on those people, they are the nicest people, right? Stroke patients have h hand on arm problems.
They need your help, right? Um, you can work with them, their hand, their wrist, their elbow, and especially their shoulders, right? You can practice on them if [00:06:00] you are working in a geriatric setting, skilled nursing facility. Let me tell you, those people need so much love and tender care. Those people have arthritic hands.
They have painful wrist. They have painful shoulders. Please show them some love and you can do it through manual treatments, and then paired up with some exercises that you would normally do to help them become more functional, to help them to be able to dress better, to help them to be able to groom better, and to be able to move around in their home better.
All right. You have an opportunity to practice and then when you go to your job interview, you know what you can say to them. You can say, Hey, I work with people with two hands and two arms, and these are how I am affecting and helping my patients in that particular setting with these techniques I've learned in so and so classes.
And then you'll be able to get the job right because if you coming straight from no experience into, [00:07:00] um, a hand therapy setting that does maybe a lot of post-surgical or a lot of chronic, or has such a diverse mixed patient population, might be really hard to get your head wrapped around it. You might be feeling like you're gonna drown the first.
Six months of it, and that's okay. If you get that job, then drown and tread water, right? There's nothing wrong with that. Learn on the clock, however. You can buy yourself a little time because sometimes it does take a little time to take the classes to apply for those jobs and then to practice, but they go hand in hand.
You don't have to do them completely separate. You don't have to do them months apart. You don't have to do it years apart. Do it now. Just take action now. Um, and you'll see how fast you can get going. And fast isn't about. Fast isn't like from one day to the next fast is really when I speak about fast, I am saying that you are taking steps, little steps.
Every [00:08:00] single day you can practice on somebody every single day. I practice in acute care. I was in acute care four years before I got my job in hand therapy. Um, I was working in a skilled nursing facility and a smaller acute care the year before that. So it took me some time before I dove into hand therapy.
And you know what? In acute care I learned a lot of wound care. Um, I. Learned how to work with post-surgical cases that were very acute, that you, you can't see them through the whole process, but you're learning how to deal with them. You're learning how to move them, you're learning how to like support their arms and things like that.
As they, as they move and as they, um, you know, are in their, the acute phases of their injury. You know, the first part of their phase is their injuries. All of those skills were not wasted. I, in my youth, thought they were gonna be wasted 25 years later. [00:09:00] I now know. That all of those skills were not wasted.
They were used to build the foundation of what I do now and what I know now, and how I treat and how I practice and how I teach. So all of your prior experience, no matter where you are in your journey to become a hand therapist, to become a certified hand therapist, whichever one, or maybe you just want to, you know, have more.
Skills within the hand therapy realm in your setting. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Take a class practice. Take a class practice. You can skip number two of getting a new job. Stay in your job. We need therapists like you in all settings that have an interest in hand therapy. Right. So, um, all of your skills up until this point is not wasted.
You'll find use for them somewhere. I promise. I just didn't know that 25 years ago and I know it now. And I hope that sharing this with you will be helpful. If you're interested [00:10:00] in hand therapy and you want to dive more into what to do, number one, like this video, subscribe, watch more of my videos, and then you can click the links below.
I have. Tons of free resources on my website that you can grab, and I also have courses that you can purchase, um, both online and live courses. So use the resources that are available to you nowadays. There's so much around that you can have access to, but then make a decision on what you're actually gonna do.
'cause watching a bunch of free stuff isn't always going to be the thing that propels you to the next level. It's you taking action. It's you taking a class, it's you applying for the job. It's you practicing. Nobody else can do that for you. And so if you sit here and you just watch the video and then do nothing, you have done nothing.
If you watch this video and you actually take action on some of the advice that's given, that one step of action that [00:11:00] you do will lead to the next and lead to the next. And then before you know it. You're gonna be 25 years deep and, um, you know, still figuring it out. I hope this video helps, like, subscribe and leave me a comment if this help you so I can make more videos for you.
All right, see you next time.
