Excellent scholarship has its benefits, as we have each learned.
For qualifying Chatham High School Seniors, one of those benefits is the opportunity to spend the last four weeks of school outside the classroom, in work environments related to their anticipated fields of study. And Katherine Schmitter did just that! Rather than continuing her daily classwork and homework, and taking exams, Katherine was at Pediatric Therapeutics learning about and assisting with therapy, primarily occupational therapy.
Katherine has been accepted into the five year Master’s of Science in Occupational Therapy program at Miseracordia University. She has had experience working at a camp for children with special needs that runs at the university. For her internship she was interested in shadowing therapists to learn more about what OTs do and about the similarities and differences between Occupational, Physical and Speech/Language Therapies. With the help of Sally Simonfay, the supervisor of Chatham High School’s Internship Program and Sheila Allen, co-director of Pediatric Therapeutics and licensed occupational therapist, Katherine became the first Chatham High School student to intern at Pediatric Therapeutics. While with us, she both shadowed and assisted therapists, logging well over one hundred hours at our center and completing numerous CHS and Pediatric Therapeutics assignments. Therapists, children and parents all contributed to Katherine’s experience, and she, in turn, shared her interest in and enthusiasm for the work we all do.
As Katherine prepares to move on to Miseracordia, we’re already looking forward to her returning in a few years for her first clinical fieldwork!