SHOUT at the BAOT National Conference..... but
where were all the men?
Were you there? Did you see us? How could you
miss us? Our green t-shirts stood out a mile (well we felt like that when we
were wearing them). Whilst having breakfast at the American Diner on our way to
the first day of the conference we were even tweeted about. We definitely felt like we didn’t need to
SHOUT about our arrival that’s for sure.
The
annual BAOT conference for all OTs and students held a veritable plethora of
new inventions, new ideas, challenges and paths for all to debate, peruse,
think about and traverse. As a student myself still I felt overwhelmed and
inspired by the vast amount of opportunities available in every available area.
Many of
us attended a wide variety of presentations of interest and even helped out in
presenting (anyone attend Collette Beechers 'Teaching Neuro the OT way?') and
submitted posters that gained commendations (see Gillian Smiths’ 'Occupational
Science and knitting poster'). The
students in SHOUT did us proud!
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Shout meets Jennifer Creek or Jennifer Creek meets SHOUT?
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SHOUT
also networked with the ‘stars’ of OT including such big names as Anita Atwal
Senior Lecturer of Brunel University particularly noteworthy as having just
personally read front to back and back to front her book ‘Occupational Therapy
and Older people’ for Claire Craig’s module Ageing and Occupation. We also
chatted with the other star of OT
Jennifer Creek whom I feel
humoured our student exuberance at her presence and discussed her latest
research with us which felt an honour.
An
overall memory of the conference was the stark lack of male presence in
attendance which struck me a hugely sad, as a ‘mild’ feminist, and someone whom
believes in equality of the sexes this was I felt a real loss. Female domination of thought could stand us
at a disadvantage when carving out new and emerging roles for the profession,
(which appears to be a major future projection) particularly gaining insight
into working with emerging spheres that may be more traditionally male
dominated.
Finally,
I would definitely attend Conference again, SHOUT had an absolutely amazing
time and hopefully we will get the opportunity to attend again and promote OT
and the work that we do at SHOUT to help promote the profession.
