FIND YOUR NICHE - HOW I FOUND MINE AND LESSONS LEARNT ALONG THE WAY

Niche - a specialised segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.

As a new grad OT I was fairly idealistic; I wanted to take on the world and do everything and do it quickly. Starting out my career in aged care and rehab, becoming driver trained was a goal I identified very early on, and like every goal directed new grad, I plotted out my path to achieving this. Back in those days the course was expensive (coming from the perspective of new grad wages it seemed out of reach), places were limited and it only ran twice a year; there was also the added condition that you needed a minimum of 3 years of relevant rehab clinical experience to even be considered.

I'll be honest, in my new grad brain I saw this course as my key to private practice, earning huge amounts of money (and getting out of those bloody awful hospital uniforms!) I had dreams of doing all kinds of assessments from cars, to heavy vehicles and motorbikes and getting everyone back to driving; how naive I was.

After completing the training I was lucky enough to have access to a hospital based Driver Assessment Service, and a fantastic Driver Assessor OT mentor and a skilled driving instructor for the first 2 years of my life as a Driver Assessor OT and this is something that I am forever grateful for. Over those 2 years I learnt some lessons and skills that have stayed with me to this day.

I learnt that when you are working in a driver assessment service linked with a Dementia and Aged Care service you will recommend licence cancellation more often than you will recommend someone is fit to drive.

I became exceptionally skilled at delivering bad news.

I discovered how significant the impact of no longer being able to drive actually is and how public transport and community transport are really not great alternatives for an elderly population with cognitive decline.

I discovered a love of working with people with physical impairments and helping them to return to driving using modified vehicle controls, particularly working alongside the vehicle modifiers and engineers to come up with custom solutions for those with more challenging injuries and functional limitations.

I discovered that having supports around to help with debriefing after particularly difficult assessments was important, but that having supports who were also driver trained was essential.

And I found myself constantly asking myself "why would anyone want to go into private practice and do this on their own?".

At which point I shelved all plans for moving into private practice and continued along my merry way in public health for another 5 years. During that time I got to establish a hospital based Driver Assessment and Rehab Service, hone my skills in a supported environment with ready access to peer performance reviews, skilled disability driving instructors and a broad range of clients from a variety of diagnostic groups. Five years of not having to worry about the financial side of the service (I'm sure someone worried about that but it wasn't us at the clinic level). Five years to develop databases, complete research and finish my Masters all while developing my clinical skills. I had found my niche!

Eventually the lure of private practice and all the flexibility it offered became too strong and I made the leap, scaling back my driver assessment work for a period of time to develop skills in other areas. As I gradually built up my driver assessment caseload again I discovered the need to develop my support networks. This was the first time I had worked as a Driver Assessor OT without another experienced driving OT in the office next door, and I realised how much I missed that. At the same time I had developed a whole other clinical skill set working with clients with spinal cord injuries and also had moved to working with a predominately compensable caseload. Add to that, the whole landscape of vehicle modifications had changed dramatically and was continuing to change at a rapid rate.

The opportunities were endless and I found myself slipping into a mindset that I could do it all, I could have it all and be everything to everyone. So off I went and while juggling a full case management load of clients with catastrophic injuries, I took the leap into the world of high level SCI, drive from wheelchair vehicle conversions. I worked with clients with brain injuries, amputations and new learners and squeezed in a few private, self-funded clients when I could. I never said no to a referral, and the day I found myself contemplating a heavy vehicle assessment (which I wasn't specifically trained to do) I realised the time had come to stop, take a breath and re-evaluate. I was wearing so many hats as an OT I couldn’t see where I was going.

It was the day I discovered what is now one of my favourite phrases...

"Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should"

.... and it was the day I learnt how to say no. It was the day I realised that I didn’t have to be great at everything, and that by stepping back I wasn’t shelving my ambition I was just channeling it into something more defined, that would leave with enough energy to keep going.

It was at this point that I realised the benefit in finding your niche. Find the thing that you are passionate about, the thing that you are really good at and that you really enjoy and make that your niche. Become the best in your niche market and if that niche market doesn’t exist yet carve it out.

For me that niche is working with people with catastrophic injuries to facilitate their community access. In many cases this involves a return to driving but also covers a spectrum of possibilities from driving through to travel as a passenger in a wheelchair accessible vehicle. My other passion is supporting Driver Assessor OT's to be the best they can and to ensure they have the skills and support to provide high quality assessments. It was out of this passion that OT Driver Education was born.

One of the things that makes me happiest is talking to OT’s who have found their niche and are happy. Finding your niche doesn’t mean you are giving up your dreams of world domination, just scaling back the size of that world to something more manageable!