Meet Occupational Therapist: Karen Rodriguez
Q: What is your title at Momentum?
A: My role at Momentum Pediatric Therapy Network is Occupational Therapist.
Q: What university did you graduate from?
A: As part of my OT degree program at CSU Dominguez Hills, I completed my second Fieldwork Level 2 rotation at MPTN and never left. That was 13 years ago.
Q: What therapy services are you a part of at MPTN?
A: I am an Early Intervention occupational therapist in Leaps and Bounds and I treat individual OT clients in both the Torrance and Long Beach clinics. Additionally, each summer for the past 13 years, I have been involved with Camp Escapades as a group leader, a camper coordinator, and ultimately Camp Director. In 2006, I earned the 80 participation hours needed to apply to OT school by volunteering at Camp Escapades. Little did I know that I would not only be working at Momentum Pediatric Therapy Network, but also directing the very same camp.
Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
A: One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is empowering parents through education on occupational therapy, particularly in sensory processing. It is so rewarding to see a client’s internal engine adjust right before your eyes through the application of sensory strategies.
Q: Why did you choose to become a therapist?
A: After a career as a preschool teacher and raising my children, I began to think about going back to school. I am a piano teacher as well and returning to school was likely to interrupt lessons. I let one piano mom know this and she suggested Occupational Therapy as a career. All I knew of Occupational Therapy was what I had overheard a preschool mom say when her pediatrician referred her child for OT, “What’s he going to do…take a briefcase to preschool?” She was thinking of occupations as how one earns their paycheck. I would love to go back in time and encourage that mom to look at occupations as ALL the ways one occupies their time. Hopefully, their job/occupation isn’t ALL they do. When you look at occupations this way, even a preschooler has occupations: to play and to learn through play. When that piano mom recommended OT as a potential new career, I looked it up on my computer and knew, at once, her advice was golden. Occupational therapy aligns with my character as a mom and grandmother (nurturer), as a preschool/piano teacher (educator), along with the overarching and much-needed quality of patience.