As this year’s Conference Chair, I am pleased with the outcomes carved from dedication and hard work by your Conference Committee. We decided to reformat the Conference in many dimensions and hope that you are able to come to Albuquerque and participate!

A special note of thanks goes out to our many professional speakers who are giving their time, bringing you their knowledge and their passions. Dr. Florence Clark, our AOTA Vice-President  with clear visions and actions of where our profession is heading, will give our keynote address on Friday, September 7. She will host the Sandia Sunrise breakfast on Saturday morning as well.  Dr. Clark advanced our profession in the medical world with her “Well-Elderly Study” and subsequent publication in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), and that was only the beginning. Come listen to her many visionary ideas and how she is changing the face of Occupational Therapy at USC and AOTA.

We also have our very own Dr. Wendy Wood presenting  “Sustaining a Firm Persuasion in Our Work” on Saturday, September 8. Dr. Wood is now a Research Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine, Center of Aging, and an Associate Editor of AJOT (American Journal of Occupational Therapy). We are very pleased to have this scholar present for us.

And this is just the beginning! We have a total of 16 speakers and a few other ways to further your knowledge and expertise: John Hockenberry’s 2006 Keynote Address during the AOTA Conference and Expo, and more than 20 sponsors anxious to inform you. We will conduct our NMOTA Business Meeting on Friday evening. We are bringing this conference to the newly remodeled Albuquerque Marriott with very affordable room rates. In addition, attendees this year will receive long-sleeved t-shirts with NMOTA insignia and sponsor logos.

Many people have been working very hard to bring you an excellent conference this year. There are a possible 12.25 continuing education units available if you take advantage of every offering. So please, continue reading the narratives, tell all your colleagues, bring your family and join us in Albuquerque, September 7 and 8, 2007. See you there!

                                                                         Pamela L. Wilson, OTR/L, LMT, NTS

                                                                         2007 NMOTA Conference Chairperson

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS

Keynote Address: Forward Movement of the Centennial Vision

Florence Clark, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA, AOTA Vice-President

Csikszentmihalyi has described the golden age of a profession as the time when its knowledge, its practice, and the values of its stakeholders are in alignment. Occupational therapy’s Centennial Vision, if realized, would enable the profession to enter its golden age. Imagine this age! It is one in which our services are justified through scientific evidence, one in which we communicate clearly in plain language what we do, and reimbursement stress is a thing of the past. This presentation will illustrate the path the profession is taking to make its bold new vision a reality. It will also introduce concepts from “The Tipping Point,” a popular book written by Malcolm Gladwell, and explain how these concepts can be applied to thinking about the future of occupational therapy.

Florence Clark, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA (Associate Dean and Chairperson of the USC Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy at the School of Dentistry), is a widely published and noted scholar.  Appointed as a charter member of the Academy of Research of the American Occupational Therapy Association, Dr. Clark has served as special consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General, been on the board of the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research and been the recipient of an Eleanor Clarke Slagle Lectureship, the highest academic honor of the American Occupational Therapy Association. In 1999, the American Occupational Therapy Association honored her with its Award of Merit and in 2001 she received a lifetime achievement award from the Occupational Therapy Association of California. In 2004 she received the Presidential Medallion from the University of Southern California, its ultimate honor, awarded to those who have brought distinction and honor to the University. Dr. Clark has also recently been elected as the Vice President of the American Occupational Therapy Association. Dr. Clark’s research interests over the past two decades have largely centered on the relationship of activity and lifestyle to health and wellness. Her recent scholarly activity centers on the design of lifestyle interventions for various populations such as independent-living older adults, business executives, obese adults, and individuals with spinal cord injury. 

Sustaining a Firm Persuasion in Our Work

Wendy Wood, Ph.D., OTR/L, FAOTA

To have a firm persuasion in our work—to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time—is one of the great triumphs of human existence.

David Whyte (2001)

How do occupational therapists sustain a firm persuasion in our work, such that we know it is right for ourselves and good for the world at exactly the same time? As observed by David Whyte, people often embark on careers filled with enthusiastic idealism about the good their work will do for others and themselves. But the futures we hope for can be quite different from the futures we go on to experience. We may become disheartened at times. We may question the wisdom of our original decisions to enter occupational therapy. We may even entertain leaving for more appealing endeavors. So given the challenges and difficulties we invariably encounter, how do we deepen our personal callings to work as occupational therapists, as opposed to abandoning those callings or allowing cynicism to triumph? Dr. Wood will explore this question in her lecture. She will present major themes from the personal-professional stories of occupational therapists with time tested and honorable careers who have contributed to A Firm Persuasion in Our Work, a standing Department in the American Journal of Occupational Therapy. Guided by these themes, she will engage participants in reflecting on their personal professional journeys, and how they might sustain, over the long haul, a firm persuasion in the rightness of occupational therapy for themselves and its goodness for the world.

Wendy Wood is Associate Editor of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy since 2004, and past Associate Professor at UNM’s OT Department.  Dr. Wood is most recently a Research Associate Professor in the Center of Aging at the UNM School of Medicine.

CEUs

CEUs will be offered for attending the 2007 NMOTA Fall Conference:

  11.25 CEUs for full attendance;

  12.25 CEUs with the ticketed Saturday breakfast (worth 1 CEU).

CEUs will be awarded before the New Mexico Licensure Renewal deadline.

DEADLINES AND DATES
Early Registration with Discount:  July 24

Pre-Registration Deadline:  August 31

Marriott Reservation Deadline:  August 17

SPONSORS

NMOTA would like to thank the following sponsors for their generous support of the 2007 Fall Conference:

  Turquoise Sponsors:                                                                  

 

 

 

   

   REHABILITATION HOSPITAL

 

 

  Silver Sponsors:                                                                          

Anatomy in Clay TM

   

  Exhibitors:                                                                                    

Direct Therapy Services

Explorabilities

GET-A-GRIP Specialty Rehab Devices

Hallmark Rehab

MECA Therapies, LLC

          

Right Track Mobility

  Community Service Exhibitors:                                                        

Alzheimer's Society

Caregiver Connections with the Department of Senior Affairs

VSA

UNM School of Medicine, Center for Development and Disability