cOnnecT with Gabrielle Trepanier

CAOT-BC Advisory Committee Member, Gabrielle Trepanier

Why did you choose OT as a career?

It was not a straight forward choice. It was a mixture of luck, exploration and discovery that led me to OT. I was out of a very broad program in cégep (Qc) that included Sciences, Languages, Socials, Arts…I was (and am still!) interested in everything! I was truly wondering if there was a career out there that would fulfill my passion for science, creative arts, politics, and contact with people, while keeping my curiosity about how the world works satisfied.  I wasn’t ready to compromise on one or more of my many fields of interests. I applied to a variety of Universities, in OT and other things like engineering. The OT school at McGill is the one that got back to me first with an acceptation letter. I talked to a family friend who is an OT, and  registered to McGill, still not too sure about what OT was. My first year in OT brought a mixture of feelings, good and bad, but confusion was definitively one of them.  It isn’t until my first placement, at the end of the first year of the then B.Sc. that clarity appeared. I was lucky to have two wonderful supervisors who really impersonated what an OT is – a creative, resourceful, practical medical professional that gets people DOING what they WANT to do.  I started my second year with a much different mindset, and each following placement confirmed that this career was for me. I even participated in a emerging practice placement, where the goal is to promote the role of OT in a milieu where they were not yet there.  I will always remember, after a couple of years in OT, explaining to my mother what I was doing at work. She looked at me and said – “They couldn’t have designed a better profession for you!” She was right!

Where have you worked over your career?

I have been lucky to work in two different provinces, and in one territory! I started my career with adults in Québec and worked in the schools in the Yukon. Most of my professional career has been in BC, specifically working at Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children and BC Children’s Hospital.

What has been your most interesting job?

For the geographical area, its people, and the need to travel to reach remote schools – working in the Yukon. For the broadness of Occupational Performance Issues OT’s get to address, and the variety in acuity of intervention – working in Paediatric Oncology.

What do you find most challenging about working as an OT?

Knowing how much we could accomplish with our skill set, and how it is unmatched by the financial resources of our health care system. It does get your creativity going though!

What do you think will change/shape practice over the next five years?

How much we make ourselves visible, how we promote the work we do, how we assert our skill set, how we advocate for the needs we must address, how we find ways to show to the policy makers the difference in quality of life and cost of care OT can bring to the table.

What do you do when you aren't (working, volunteering)?  Everything else I love…which is many things, from Rock Climbing, to crochet, to playing guitar, to reading…and many more!