Three Assumptions That Are Holding You Back From Becoming a Certified Hand Therapist
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[00:00:00] Hey there, it's Hoang I wanna talk to you if you are the mature occupational therapist, if you have at least 15, 20, 25, 30 years of work experience. I wanna talk to you today because I believe that there are three assumptions that you're making that's holding you back from becoming a certified hand therapist.
[00:00:21] If you're new here, my name is Hoang. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist, and. I'm here to help you develop your career, and if that means becoming a certified hand therapist, I wanna help you. See what these assumptions are and see if I can help you work through some of these assumptions.
[00:00:38] Now I've been talking to therapists for a long time. In the last four years I've been working, within hand therapy secrets and just talking to hundreds of thousands of occupational therapists who have. Thought about becoming a certified hand therapist. Some are moving into that realm and I just came back from the A O T A conference like a little while ago, and I think that every [00:01:00] single time I go to these big conferences or oh, or even when I was teaching in the manual therapy class in Austin I always meet the more mature right.
[00:01:11] The mature therapist who has, this is your, the mature therapist in the sense that this is your second career, let's say. So you're not in your twenties, you're not fresh outta, a school in that sense. This is your second career. You have a lot of experience built from your prior career to this.
[00:01:26] Career in occupational therapy, you might be someone who has a vast experience in a lot of different areas, and that's the draw of occupational therapy, right? Like we are told in occupational therapy school that the great thing about being an occupational therapist is that we are able to move from area to area of our choosing because.
[00:01:49] It gives you such a variety so you can work with adults like Q Care, skilled nursing, hands, peds, all that stuff. What they don't tell you is that in each sector you have to develop certain skills. [00:02:00] There's your baseline skills of evaluations and like how you generally do one, how you write notes, how you treat.
[00:02:06] But for the most part each area requires a certain amount of skills. That is the same for hand therapy. I would say hand therapy is a lot more technical than most. But that's just me. But if you have, let's say, 10, 15, 20 years of experience in different areas, or it could just be in hand therapy, but something is holding you back from becoming a certified hand therapist, you have it in the back of your head.
[00:02:31] You've had it in the back of your head for a really long time, and every single time. People become certified hand therapists around you, or you start looking into it again, that desire is bubbling up backdrop, and the way I say, it's like it's going from the back of your brain, back to the front of your brain.
[00:02:49] And now I think now you need to decide, is this your turn? You make this your turn. Every time I go to a conference, every time I teach a class, I meet [00:03:00] therapists who say long. I have a lot of, I have 20 years, 30 years of experience. I don't know if it's too late for me.
[00:03:06] These are the conversations that I'm having and I want to share them with you because if you are the older therapist, I want you to believe and I want you to know you're not alone. I was just in class and the therapist there, she loves being a therapist. Like I think that's fantastic. I think in a day and age where, there's a lot of conversations about like how I hate being a therapist and all this, crap.
[00:03:26] With insurances and stuff like that, there's still lots and lots of people who love being occupational therapists, who love working with their patients and getting them better. And still find a lot of joy and value in that, and they. Have it in the back of their head. The people around them are saying you can do it, but somehow or another they're not believing it might be true for them.
[00:03:46] I just wanna tell you, it can be true. I've met people, I've helped people in my program who are just like you and I wanna share with you what are the three assumptions that might be holding you back from becoming a certified hand therapist. And maybe if we just talk about those [00:04:00] assumptions, maybe they can also.
[00:04:01] Bubble up and come to the surface and allow you to address them so that you can give yourself a chance. I would hate for you to come to the end of your career and say, I never did things that I wanted to do, because I meet those people too. I meet them too and they're like, ah, it's too late, I'm retiring.
[00:04:17] But you could tell that, they really wanted it. And if you really want it, it could happen for you. And it doesn't matter how many years left you have, I just have someone. Who just joined the program, the exam prep program recently. And she's a therapist. She went into management for a while and then now she's back into being a therapist and.
[00:04:37] She had the same conversation. It's Hey I'm an older therapist. I have this number of years of experience. I decided to get out of management, go back into patient care, and now I'm competing against these really young people, these really young therapists who probably don't think I can make it right.
[00:04:54] You can make it if you're open-minded, just like anything else, you can make it if you [00:05:00] take the action steps to learn, because management is different than treatment. If you're in a skilled nursing or acute care, it's different from hands, but here are some assumptions you might be making, right?
[00:05:11] I'm gonna, I'm gonna name three of, I'll name three of them right now and then we can go a little bit deeper into into each one. So you're assuming you're gonna fail. It's like the assumption that you can't do it or you're gonna fail if you try. We're gonna dive into that one. Assumptions of age.
[00:05:29] You're assuming due to your age, fill in the blank. I am this age. And you're assuming that because of your age you can't become a certified hand therapist. And then the other one, the assumption I hear probably most often. Gosh, I don't know. Those other two are really good. But the assumption that your brain doesn't work your brain works.
[00:05:54] Okay. I'm gonna dive into that a little bit more as well. But the assumption, We [00:06:00] tell ourselves stories all the time. I'm there too. We tell ourselves stories of failure instead of stories of success. And we tell ourselves, we assume we're going to fail. So sometimes people come talk to me and they're like I have 25 years of experience and the thing that scares me the most is failing.
[00:06:20] And I think part of it is that we. You know how kids are, like little kids, they're fearless and it's because they haven't experienced a lot of failure. And when you're a kid, you have people who pick you up and supposedly protect you, right? And so you can be in your. Infancy, toddler age, and not have this fear of failure.
[00:06:43] But somehow life beats the shit out of us. And the longer you've been living, the more experience you have gained. But sometimes in those experiences the, our perceptions of failures or actual failures, right? [00:07:00] And because those have compounded over a certain time, it's easier to say the CHT exam is really hard.
[00:07:09] It's a 50 50 pass, fail rate. And I'm, I'm gonna fail if I take it cuz I haven't studied in a really long time. So automatically you are assuming you're going to fail and that is holding you back from becoming a certified hand therapist. Actually, if you took the necessary steps to study in a way that's going to help you pass, aren't you capable of passing?
[00:07:33] Like I think if you got your degree, I don't care how many years ago, but you're smart enough. With the amount of experience that you have that you can pull up, isn't it possible isn't it possible for you to be successful? So that assumption that you're going to fail is really the thing that won't even let you get started.
[00:07:55] It won't even let you get started. If you have taken the exam in the past and now [00:08:00] waited because of that old failure that is the assumption that oh, I failed before. I'm gonna fail again. Not of you do it differently, not of you do it differently. You actually could pass. But the fear of failure is really that assumption that you're holding, that's holding you back.
[00:08:16] I remember my first one of my first jobs, not my first job. I was already a therapist for a few years, and one of my supervisors, he told me that he had always wanted to be a certified hand therapist and that he took the exam before and he failed. And it had been like 10 or 15 years since he failed, but because that one failure, he wouldn't try again.
[00:08:39] He's oh, he made excuses for his life being busy. Oh, my kids, oh my my work and all, like all sorts of stuff. He used as excuses because of he was scared to fail again. But I can tell you that I've seen people pass after multiple failures. And I think if I can see [00:09:00] that in other people, I can see it in you.
[00:09:02] And it's possible. You just have to get through that one little hurdle in order to take the necessary steps to study in a way that's gonna help you pass. The second assumption is assumption of age. That if you're older, that you don't have a right. Oh, I'm, I've been a therapist for 25 years.
[00:09:18] All these young ones let them go first. Get outta here. Get your ass in line and stay in line. Don't let everyone else pass you by. You are the one letting them go. They're not cutting you in line. They're not saying you don't get a chance. You're saying you don't get a chance just from the m.
[00:09:36] Assumption of your age. And I think that's really holding you back. Age is just a number and you have the leverage of experience, but the thing that helps us is also the thing that hurts us, right? That you can leverage your experience to help you pass, you can level up your ability to make decisions.
[00:09:56] To help you pass. You have all [00:10:00] this working experience that you can help, to help you pass. And I think that when you assume your age doesn't let you do something, then that assumption is a thing that stops you. If we as therapists assume I'm a therapist, you're a therapist. And someone who comes into my clinic door at the age of 70 let's say, and they start having pain and they're like, oh, it's just my age.
[00:10:26] Do you say, yep, you're old. Just live with the pain and die? No, you don't. You tell them like, oh my God, absolutely not. Even if you're 70, you can be independent. Even if you're 70, I could work to help you get rid of the pain. I can't get rid of all the pain depending on the diagnosis, right?
[00:10:48] But I can help you overcome X, Y, and Z. And I think the same is when it comes to age. The assumption that age is the defining factor that you shouldn't take [00:11:00] your return to become a certified hand therapist. I can't get rid of all your fears. I can't get rid of all your experiences, good or bad. But what I can do is help you, figure out X, Y, and Z.
[00:11:12] What are the necessary steps in order to help you, give you a better chance of passing? And so much of it has to do with how you study. And I'll tell you what, when it comes to how you study the, I think the mean. Advice or tip out there is to start with a brachial plexus. And I have spoken to so many different people who have been told to start with a brachial plexus, and it's let me start with the hardest thing.
[00:11:39] And then, because you start with the hardest thing that you might not have a ton of experience with. And then it's all about memorization, the overwhelm of that. Makes it even harder for you to study a member. So then you quit that. This is literally what's happening to a lot of people that they're being [00:12:00] told to start with a brachial plexus or whatever, fill in the blank.
[00:12:03] Start with the hardest thing. And because you're starting with the hardest thing and you don't feel successful with it, you quit and you blame it on age. Age has absolutely nothing to do with it. Age is just a number and I think if you can follow a certain curriculum in a cadence of order, like there's a cadence to, to a study pattern that can help you no matter your age.
[00:12:30] There's a cadence of of studying and in order to which how you study that can really help you leverage your experience level, everything that you know, in order to help you pass. I believe it's true. I've seen it happen and I wouldn't count you out. I wouldn't count you out, but you have to not count you out.
[00:12:51] And I think that's the biggest thing is that. Don't count yourself out. Don't count yourself out because there's no one who's [00:13:00] going to count you in. You are the only person who can count you in. That third assumption, it's a hard one. And if you believe that to be true that based on your age that you can't do something, then you can't.
[00:13:11] There's this saying if you believe you can or believe you can't. It's true. So if you believe that you can, no matter your age, then it's possible for you, and then it's just about how do you get the right kind of help? How do you get the right curriculum so that you can study in a way that's gonna help you pass?
[00:13:29] The third assumption, I hear this all the time. As an older therapist, I haven't been in school in a really long time, and my brain just doesn't work that way. My brain doesn't work the same. You're right. You're absolutely right. Your brain doesn't work the same. It actually works fucking better.
[00:13:47] Has anyone ever told you that it works better? And there's research behind this. I've read some research behind this that talks a lot about how like the maturing brain just learns differently. [00:14:00] So if you are trying to learn the way you learned in your twenties, then yeah, it's not gonna work, right?
[00:14:06] Because you don't have a 20 year old. I don't have a 20 year old brain. I don't even want my 20 year old brain. Like when I was in my twenties, I didn't know shit from shit. I didn't know how to study. I just winged it. By sheer effort because you just have tamina in your twenties that is unmatched, right?
[00:14:25] Like you have tamina like woo. But doesn't mean that you were studying smarter back then. It just meant that you were doing what everyone else your age was doing. But now in your mature age, I'm in my, I'm almost 50. And I value my brain now more than I valued it then I'm more focused now.
[00:14:45] I, and it's really, it comes down to habit. It really comes down to habit. And, here's what happens with your brain as you mature, right? Your, an older brain understands concepts, right? An older brain understands concepts more than [00:15:00] it is about memorization. So if you are studying by pure memorization, then yeah, you're making it harder for yourself.
[00:15:08] Like you're, shit's already hard. You're making it like, let me compound more shit on top of that to make it harder. But our more mature brain is different and we should value the difference and then actually use it to our vantage. Understanding concepts, you probably already understand some of this stuff.
[00:15:27] You're just not able to piece it together because you're trying to study by memorization alone, because that's what some of the other people are telling you, because that's how maybe they passed when they were younger. I can tell you right now that it's. It's an assumption that you can't pass, right?
[00:15:43] So if your assumption is my brain doesn't work the same, then it comes back to assumption number one of I'm going to fail. And assumption number two, which is, my age limits me. And there is a a saying, judge [00:16:00] Judy, I don't know if you know that show, but I believe her name is. Judy, but judge Judy, there's this clip where she talks about if you didn't make it in your twenties, you can make it in your thirties.
[00:16:10] If you didn't make it in your thirties, you can make it in your forties and if you didn't make it in your forties, you can make it in your fifties and on. That is as limitless as you allow yourself to be. And if you can. If you can, acknowledge these are the assumptions that you're making, then we can say how can we move it along?
[00:16:28] How can we get past this? And really it comes down to I was breaking down to a student of mine inside the exam prep, and she's an older student and she's she's been trying to study and it's been overwhelming. And she started with the brachial plexes and she's trying to memorize everything.
[00:16:47] I'm like, scratch that. This is how you can essentially break it up. I'm a believer in breaking information up into chunks, into bite-size pieces so that we can. We can [00:17:00] consume it in a more, in a fashion with more ease. Am I saying that right? Yeah. Like with just better, with more ease.
[00:17:07] If there's a lot of information we have to learn which is true. There's a lot of information, there's a lot of detail when you're studying for the CHT exam. But we can break it up into in a way that just helps you. The exam is quite specific in terms of. How, what's required to pass and I've broken up into three core requirements.
[00:17:26] The three core requirements are that you just have to study. Some people have tried not studying, taking it, and failed. So you do have to put the time into study all the topics, and then you have to be able to critically think through. So for example, if you're studying hands, What are some general things you need to understand?
[00:17:43] You need to understand anatomy, right? You need to understand kinematics of how the hand works and functions. Then you need to understand the nature of injuries. The nature of injuries really breaks down into few core things, and one of it's like fractures, dislocations, fractured [00:18:00] dislocations, right?
[00:18:02] And so those are the nature surgeries. Now, what are surgeries that are required? So you want to be able to chunk that up and then think about how do you evaluate. So it's a little bit beyond oh, I have to get grip measurements and whatever. Pinch measurements. It's a little bit more beyond that.
[00:18:18] It's clinical testing that allows you to problem solve, right? So if you study all that critical thinking allows you to go through and say how do I evaluate this to rule in and rule out particular problems, right? And then from my ability to rule and rule out. What's the what's the prognosis?
[00:18:35] What's the protocol? So everyone's stuck on protocol, but really what happens within the protocol is that it's your ability to make critical to make decisions, right? So the three core values is to study the topics in a way that you understand, concepts that you understand, and then be able to problem solve through it, and then be able to make decisions.
[00:18:55] That's the core of the exam. And then what you wanna be able to do is you wanna be [00:19:00] able to take all those things and apply it to treatment. What do we as therapists do? We provide treatment. It's through our treatment. It's through taking them from week to week to week. That allows us to get results for our patients, right?
[00:19:13] That's how we, that's how we get results for them. That's how we help them. And so that is the core found, that's the core value essentially of of the CHT exam. And I think that if you as a mature therapist can move past your three assumptions that you're going to fail that ages. Limiting you and that your brain somehow is less than, or works less than other people's brains.
[00:19:37] If you can move past those three assumptions you can become a certified hand therapist. And if you want my help, I am able to help you. I run the exam prep program, and what I do is I chunk out the information. And I take those three core values and I break them into nine requirements nine accelerators that essentially can help you hit all the major targets in [00:20:00] order to pass, right?
[00:20:01] So I'll include the link below. If you want my help then apply for the exam prep program. And when you go onto that link, you'll get more details and I'm happy to have conversations with you about, if you've failed before. How have you studied before, you know what's worked and what's not worked to help you problem solve to say where, what's the area that I need the most help in to make sure that this program is the right program for you.
[00:20:26] But before I can even do those things, cause I could lecture all day every day. The problem is if you don't believe it's possible for you, then nothing I lecture on will help. Like I can sit here and talk about hand, fractures and dislocations and how do we treat it all day every day. I can do that all day long.
[00:20:43] I love that shit, right? But if you, yourself, as a mature therapist, have these three assumptions that are holding you back, you'll never get started. You'll never get started with me. You'll never get started with anybody. So part of this conversation is are you making those assumptions and [00:21:00] can we have a conversation about it?
[00:21:01] Because if there is a possibility that something can be done so that you can achieve your goal of becoming a certified hand therapist, I would love the opportunity to help you. Even if it's to make the decision, yes, it's possible for me, then let's do it. So if this conversation has helped you at all, please and leave me a comment and let me know what you think, what assumptions are you making, what is your top assumption?
[00:21:24] I will love to know because these are the three assumptions that I hear on the regular. All right? Alright. Thank you so much. My name is Hoang and if you need my help, the links are below.
