Overview

About Occupational Therapy

Train to become a skilled occupational therapy practitioner dedicated to helping people participate fully in everyday life. Wagner’s entry-level Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) program blends foundational sciences and hands-on clinical experiences to prepare students for a rewarding career in diverse healthcare settings. Our comprehensive curriculum emphasizes compassionate, evidence-based care and real-world application to improve quality of life across the lifespan.

Tags: ,
Visit Department Website

CLASSES OF NOTE

What is Occupational Therapy?

Explores the history and evolution of occupational therapy and examines the core beliefs and official documents that define the profession’s practice purpose, process, and scope. The correlation between human occupation and health and wellness is examined to further understanding of the occupational therapy process guiding practitioners.

Innovative and Specialized Practices

Explores advanced, specialized, emerging, and innovative practice areas in occupational therapy including direct service, consultative, and entrepreneurial models. Advanced training and formal education for practice competency is integrated into each practice area studied.

Leadership and Administration

Analysis of the programmatic core value of leadership and how occupational therapists manifest this capacity within intraprofessional, interprofessional, healthcare, business, fiscal, community, and professional reasoning contexts. Explores contemporary leadership theories and styles as well as opportunities and responsibilities for the occupational therapist in administrative, management, and supervisory roles.

Beyond the Classroom

Fieldwork

    Experiential learning is a valued pillar of the Wagner College OTD Program curriculum. The clinical fieldwork program strives to frame student readiness as “exceptional, reflective practitioners who will optimize the health and occupational wellness of those they serve.” As such, clinical experiences are woven into the curriculum design to allow for critical reflection, clinical reasoning and the integration and application of foundational knowledge and skills learned in the classroom.

Doctoral Capstone

The doctoral capstone phase of the Wagner College OTD Program provides each student the opportunity to develop and apply advanced-level skills in an area of professional interest. The 14-week capstone experience and interrelated scholarly project enables students to make meaningful contributions in both traditional and non-traditional occupational therapy settings such as schools, hospitals, local businesses, community-serving organizations, or through public policy and advocacy.

Preparing practice-ready occupational therapists

“Wagner's Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) Program is dedicated to preparing compassionate occupational therapists who can assess and integrate essential daily activities into the rehabilitation and habilitation processes.”