One of my main purposes for starting this blog was to keep those who were interested up to date on the things I am involved in during my internship. So I would like to take this opportunity to go in more depth on the things that I have been doing here as I enter into the last week of my second month.
I guess I can say my internship is broken into a few different components. I have my individual case load, groups that I lead, co-lead, or observe, and the admin/prep/time to process the clinical choices that I make. I really want to stress that there is a difference between music therapy and music being therapeutic. One of the art therapy trainees here made a great point…if you take music out of our title all that is left is therapy. We are therapist. Trained, credential holding (or on the journey to), professional, clinical therapist. And sure, while majority of the things we do might seem recreational and fun, all of our choices have a clinical purpose, meaning, and intention based on our training. Okay, with that said let me tell you a bit more about what I do every day.
Individual Clients
-I am currently building my individual caseload here at CHLA. All of the patients we see are referred by someone on their care team. This includes doctors, nurses, child life specialist, or social workers. There are numerous reasons why a patient might be referred to music therapy but majority of the time it is for additional support while coping with the hospital setting/diagnosis. I’ve experienced a wide range of diagnosis including cancer, hemodialysis, spinal injury, traumatic brain injury, coma, Rhetts Syndrome, developmentally delayed, Bone Marrow Transplant and pre/post surgery to name a few. Age range for patients I follow are between 1month – 16 years old.
I usually go to the bedside, introduce my self and services and take it from there. During the first session I usually assess for the appropriateness of music therapy and take it from there.
Groups
-So far I am lead, co-lead, or observe 4 different groups, and I will be starting a 5th this week.
2 of the groups are called Expressive Arts Group and they are co-lead between music and art therapy. We plan different directives to do every week with the patients on different units, but majority of the time things don’t go as plan. Which is pretty much they story of every music therapists life. A lot of the time the children get super excited about the 10 million instruments that have been laid before them or the fact that they can choose between 5 thousand different markers and colored pieces of paper. (We like to provide options.)
Let’s just say by the time they are done trying to test out each and every instrument (played as hard as possible), marker, and paper, they are ready to move on to something else. It is a small victory when we find a directive that really works well for the group. I’m having a good time with these groups to say the least. We had a very successful group last week where we made our own Native American Symbols that represented us, what our Native American name would be and then had a Native American drum circle. Mine was cooking wolf…
-Another group that I lead is Physical Therapy/Music Therapy group. These kids are on the rehabilitation unit and are recovering from different traumas including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injuries, and falling accidents. They are mainly working on their fine and gross motor skills in this group, and the purpose of music therapy is to provide a different type of motivation for the kids as well as make it more interactive. I take request for songs and try to engage the patients during the group as a way to promote communication and socialization while they are doing these strenuous exercises. It is AMAZING to see how these kids improve week to week, very inspiring.
* I get a lot of Michael Jackson request and rap songs……….I am a terrible rapper and the kids just kind of stare at me as I make a fool of myself fumbling through guitar chords and lyrics to these hardcore rap songs while trying to bleep out all the not so child friendly words.
I just got this request on Friday....
Apparently errything I do I do it big...
I co-lead a Rhetts Syndrome group on Saturday once a month with another music therapy intern.
*A bit of background on Rhetts…it is a disorder that affect the way the brain develop. This degenerative disorder is almost exclusively found in girls because the defect is found on the X chromosome. Because boys only have 1, whereas girls have 2, majority die at birth. Mainly people with this disorder are non verbal and may have loss of purposeful movements with fine and gross motor functions, seizures, and difficulty breathing and/or eating.
This group has been a big learning experience for me. I think it’s a bit natural to want to walk on eggshells around people with disabilities or feel unsure of the “appropriate” way to act. In my opinion being your authentic self works 100% of the time or your money back! I have had a fabulous time and I think it says a lot that some of these families come from pretty far to participate in this group once a month. This group really gives the girls a voice and an opportunity to make choices and hopefully feel empowered.
So that is a little taste of some of the things I do from day to day at the hospital. Thanks for reading :)
