Registration Open

MAOT 2018 Annual Conference

“Building Resilience:

Quality of Life through Occupational Therapy”

October 26, 2018

Four Points By Sheraton Norwood

Keynote address by Richard Mangino

Richard Mangino, 65, lost his arms and legs in 2002 after contracting a blood infection from an undetected kidney stone. In October, Bohdan Pomahac supervised a double hand transplant for Mangino. The Revere native can now open and close his fingers. “I look at the other person’s eyes when they see my hands for the first time,” he says. “It’s like they’re looking at magic.”

“It gives you a cold sweat when you’re taking a face off the donor,” Bohdan Pomahac says. He should know. As the head of the plastic surgery transplant team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Pomahac this year oversaw three separate procedures in which a patient received a brand-new face. Oh, and he also supervised a transplant that resulted in an amputee getting two new hands.

Pomahac is a man of science, of course, but he gets a little mystical when describing the intricate process. First he has to cut away the donor’s tissue. After the face is removed, it’s transferred to a preservative solution that makes it appear ghostlike. “It’s pale, there is no color in the lips; it’s almost gray,” Pomahac says. “And then we bring it over here to the hospital and connect the vessels that provide the inflow and outflow of blood. That’s the magical moment. You see the blood rushing in, and suddenly a wave of pigment spreads through the face from one side to the other. You can’t believe it’s happening.”

After seeing successful face transplants in Europe, Pomahac became convinced that he could do the procedure here. The biggest challenge, he says, was proving to the hospital that these non-lifesaving surgeries were a worthy endeavor. Yes, the patients may be alive, he argued, but what kind of lives were they living? “There is no functional prosthetic for the face. These are the aspects of human life that we can restore,” he says. And “no matter what prosthesis you have, the hand is not just something that’s mechanical. You want to touch your family or loved ones.”

After convincing the teaching hospital to develop the plastic surgery transplant program, Pomahac had to persuade the transplant-organ community to allow him to harvest donor tissues. He then raised millions of dollars and worked with healthcare providers to get his patients covered for the immunosuppressant drugs they’d need to prevent rejection.

 

Red Sox Rehabilitation Services Night!

Our own Melissa Tilton throwing out the first pitch!!

Photo credits to Karen Hefler

 

 

Exhibit at the MAOT 2018 Conference

“Building Resilience:

Quality of Life through Occupational Therapy”

October 26, 2018

Four Points By Sheraton Norwood

Click here for Exhibitor Form

Thank you to this years MAOT Exhibitors!

 

American International College

AOTA
Bay Path University

Home Modification Loan Program/CEDAC

Image Sportsware

MassMATCH

MGH Institute of Health Professions

Manus Robotics, Inc.

Natale Company & SafetyCare

Numotion

Partners HealthCare at Home/Spaulding Rehabilitation Network

Perkins Library

Regis College

REquipment DME & ATREUSE Program, Inc.

Salem State University

Shriners Hospitals for Children - Springfield

Western New England University

 

 

CALL FOR AWARD NOMINATIONS

Nominations must be received via email or postmarked by September 28, 2018

Click here to see our nomination categories and recognize a Occupational Therapy Professional!

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New ACOTE Accreditation Standards Adopted

After an extensive 2 ½-year process, multiple surveys to the communities of interest, and several open hearings, the Accreditation Council for Occupational Therapy Education (ACOTE®) has adopted new accreditation standards for doctoral-degree-level occupational therapy programs, master’s-degree-level occupational therapy programs, baccalaureate-degree-level occupational therapy assistant programs, and associate-degree-level occupational therapy assistant programs. The new Standards are available on the ACOTE accreditation section of the AOTA Web site ( www.acoteonline.org). Programs will be required to comply with the new 2018 Standards by July 31, 2020.

In addition, ACOTE voted to allow early implementation of two doctoral-level Standards as programs would like to develop their curricula to reflect the new Standards to better address the needs of their faculty and students and for strategic planning purposes. Specifically,

1. Allow programs to waive the requirement in 2011 Standard A.3.2 for program applicants to hold a baccalaureate degree or higher prior to admission to the program.
2. Allow OTD programs to have a 14-week Capstone Experience (2018 Standard D.1.3) versus a 16-week Capstone Experience (2011 Standard C.2.3).

ACOTE will host information sessions on the new Standards at the October 2018 Academic Leadership Council (ALC) meeting in Louisville, Kentucky and at the April 2019 AOTA Annual Conference and Expo in New Orleans. In the spring and fall of 2019, ACOTE will provide regional workshops for interested faculty. The workshops will focus on the changes in the new Standards and strategies that programs could use to ensure compliance.

Update on Entry-Level Education

At the August 2018 meeting, ACOTE took the following actions:

ACOTE ACTION:

Lift the abeyance on the OTA mandate decision and rescind the mandate for a single point of entry for the occupational therapy assistant at the baccalaureate degree level.

ACOTE ACTION:

Reaffirm the decision from August 2017 to require a single point of entry for the occupational therapist at the doctoral level.

ACOTE has acted in the best interests of all parties with the decision for a single point of entry for the occupational therapist and the dual point of entry for the occupational therapy assistant. ACOTE will continue to support educational programs to meet the growing needs of society and fulfill its potential in the 21^st century. We look forward to working with educational programs to ensure quality occupational therapy education by supporting the preparation of competent occupational therapists and occupational therapy assistants. ACOTE will notify our stakeholders as these decisions impact their work and transition processes.

Any questions should be e-mailed to   accred@aota.org.

Click here to see the FAQs from AOTA's Board of Directors on the OT and OTA Mandates

Click here for information for AOTA Members