TNOTA – A Conversation with Amanda Dunn, COTA/L
This conversation took place between Amanda (TNOTA member) and a TNOTA staff member on May 22, 2026. The purpose of this conversation was to better understand Amanda’s entry into the work of occupational therapy, the various roles she has held throughout her career, and the ways in which participation in her state OT association has aided her development. This interview is part of a larger, ongoing project within TNOTA to continue to bring the unique experiences of individual members into the limelight. Doing so, we hope to promote the profession of occupational therapy and the value of interprofessional collaboration by demonstrating the real-world impact of OT practitioners on lives and communities.
If you would like to be interviewed, or you would like to suggest a colleague be interviewed for this project, please reach out to admin@tnota.org. Thank you for your consideration, and for the work you do each day to support your profession, colleagues, and community!
TNOTA staff: Can you tell me about the moment or the person that made you say, “This is what I want to do. I want to work in occupational therapy.”
Amanda: Oh, absolutely. I was blessed to live 25 years of life with a great grandmother. She was in her 80s at the time and she had a fall and she broke her right hip and right wrist at the same time. They sent her home after a total hip replacement, and they decided at her age that she wasn’t a good candidate for surgery on the wrist. So, they sent her home and of course she had home health come out (actually with a company that I previously worked for), and while the physical therapy was great, I always felt like [my great grandmother]’s occupational therapist just really hit it out of the park.
He was the best contact as far as, you know, any concerns we had on her safety or how she was going to be able to do things, because she wanted to be able to live alone for as long as she could. He was able to help us make that happen.
She lived roughly 8 to 10 years after that total hip and wrist, and throughout that whole experience, I just felt like the OT that came did such a good job at explaining their job, and I believe [he] helped her the most out of anyone.
After that experience, I was kind of on the fence [regarding a career] for a long time. And of course, you know, nursing is promoted really hard, so I thought for the longest time, “yeah, [nursing] is what I want to do.” But after [my great grandmother] unfortunately, sadly broke a hip and a wrist, my perspective changed because I decided that I wanted to be more on the “fixing people” side of things.
TNOTA staff: Gotcha. Honestly, that’s not uncommon for many of the stories that I’ve heard from the other OT practitioners I’ve been able to to speak to. It seems pretty common that it’s either a family member or a close friend has an event like the one that you describe in relation to your grandmother, and then they meet a practitioner who is very good at describing what they do, and it sounds enticing enough to them that they want to pursue [occupational therapy] as well.
Amanda: Yeah, that’s absolutely the heart of it.
TNOTA staff: Occupational therapy is sometimes described as a “science of everyday life” because of the way that OT practitioners help clients and patients to navigate their own lives with agency and dignity. What does that phrase mean to you in your own practice that OT might be “the science of everyday life?”
Amanda: Oh, that’s a good one. Well for starters, we go in and of course try to do a ton of education on our role in relation to someone’s daily occupations. We try to tell everyone that we approach things with a holistic view and we are looking at the whole person, the environment, the support system – just generally trying to cover all the bases of someone’s experience, whereas, you know, some of our other colleagues – in physical therapy for example – look more toward the injury itself.
[OT practitioners] want to be huge advocates for bettering the all around person instead of just fixing the injury that they’re referred for.
So I think it’s the science of everyday life because I go in and tell people, “While I understand that your strength is this issue, I want you to tell me the ‘real’ stuff. What can we not do? Can we not go to the grandkids ball games? Can we not go to church on Sunday?” Etc.
I always try to connect the dots that while we’re improving their strength, I want you to improve your strength so that you can do this or you can get back to what you want to do, instead of just approaching it like, “Yeah, therapy came, and my arm’s better, and now I’m done.”
TNOTA staff: That makes sense. So, really more outcome focused as opposed to just function focused. It’s not about flexion in your joints, for example; it’s more about what that flexion allows you to move around and navigate and achieve.
Amanda: Absolutely.
TNOTA staff: Got it. What’s something that you wish people outside the profession understood about what OT practitioners do on a day-to-day basis?
Amanda: Oh gosh, this is like my elevator speech once a week.
My OT and I have worked together for the last three and a half years. She was a COTA in home health prior to going back and bridging for an MSOT. But she did, I want to say I think it was seven years as a COTA in home health. Both of us talk every day until we’re blue in the face to other practitioners, whether that be PT, doctors, nurses, just trying to educate them on what we can do.
You know, we’re not looking at just one particular injury. We’re looking at the whole person and the environment, and there’s so many practitioners that we run into who we feel like we have to give our spiel about why they need us. It’s just kind of, you know, disappointing that physicians and PTs aren’t given that knowledge: while the OT practitioners can address your arm, for example, they can also address balance, or vision, or cognition, or environmental aspects and we run into that [gap in knowledge] every day. Many people just think we’re cut and dry strengthening and range of motion training, and that’s all we can do.
So I would say I want provider and practitioner education to be better in the OT department.
TNOTA staff: It’s almost like you guys are at odds with a medical system, that on the whole is very “episodic” in its approach to care. It’s very, “Oh you have an ailment. We’re going to fix it. Okay, now our relationship is done.”
Whereas with OT practitioners, that is so not the approach. You guys are relationship first and context first. So, you’re at odds not just with understandings, but in some ways you’re at odds with the way that our medical system is structured.
Amanda: Absolutely. And of course, you know, we have to show tangible progress, and strengths or range of motion or whatever for insurance approval. And I think that sometimes the doctors get caught up in the numbers, not the lived experience.
It’s surprising [to me] that the more relationships that we develop with our referral sources, the more we learn about how much they didn’t know that we could do or address.
I think there’s such a gap in that everybody knows what physical therapy does, and I’ve even heard OT be called “the other therapy.”
It’s upsetting that there’s not so much translation into doctoral doctoral programs, or PT programs to really collaborate with OT and what that requires or looks like.
TNOTA staff: Yeah, I understand why that would be frustrating. You know, TNOTA’s staff team have had the privilege of supporting a number of nonprofit associations that represent different healthcare professionals, and from my own perspective “the OT practitioner” is absolutely different than the other medical professions that I’ve worked with. The biggest difference that I see is that so many more OT practitioners really view this work as a “calling profession.”
I think that that sets OTPs apart in a meaningful way.
Amanda: It does. And it’s one of those– I call it the “hidden gem profession,” because I mean, I thought [the OT practitioner who helped my great grandmother] was cool when he came to help my grandmother, but I didn’t realize the depth of it.
Since I have been practicing myself, I’ve been in the school system, I have done outpatient orthopedic, I’ve worked under a certified hand therapist, and then for the last three and a half years I’ve done home care.
It’s just so incredibly mind-blowing, the scope of people we can see and the scope of diagnoses we can address. We preach all the time if anybody’s referred to home health for anything that should elicit an OT. But that’s also part of our elevator speech that we can give ‘till we’re blue in the face.
TNOTA staff: Yeah. I think that’s part of the ongoing advocacy effort. I also think we’ll get there eventually, and sharing stories and experiences like yours are part of the way we get there.
I only have a couple more questions for you, Amanda.
Amanda: Go ahead.
TNOTA staff: Okay. What does a good day look like in your uh personal practice? If you could just walk me through what would be a great day for you as a practitioner.
Amanda: Well, where I work in home health, I’m the only full-time COTA. We do have another PRN that works about three days a week, and she’s wonderful also. She helps me a lot. But the ideal day is: I get started about 8/8:30 in the morning. I usually see between 7 to 10 visits a day. I wish I could tell you a mile radius, but sometimes it’s all over the place. So, most of the time you’re on “go” all day from about 8 to 4:30/5 seeing those 7 to 10 patients.
Recently, I’ve had a lot of orthopedic injuries, which do have a special place in my heart. I love a hand surgery, or an arm surgery. But back to an ideal day – it would be seeing about nine [patients], and it’s smooth, and there is 15 minutes or less of drive time between each one of those. I normally don’t ever stop for lunch, but if I do on an ideal day, I would have a little stop in the middle of the day for lunch and then keep going.
But ultimately I just want to see success – and that’s what I tell my patients. I don’t care how many times we have to do this or that, I want to see you succeed. And if we can get, you know, three of those out of nine to do something that they weren’t able to do for the past however many weeks… I mean, that’s a pretty killer day, I think.
TNOTA staff: It sounds like a big part of it is scheduling that respects your time, so there’s that logistical part of it that makes it a good day. And then there’s the “purpose work” of seeing somebody hit a new milestone in their own progress.
Amanda: Yeah, exactly.
TNOTA staff: Great. Well, the last question I have for you you’ve kind of already answered for me in this interview, but I’m still going to ask it.
So, if a high school student were to ask you if occupational therapy was the right direction for them to go in for their career, what would you tell them that you wish someone had told you before you pursued OT as a career?
Amanda: That is a good one. I guess I wish I had been told that it involves constant advocacy for yourself. You always have to fight for your place, because, you know, out of 20 referrals probably 19 of those have physical therapy on them, and maybe six or seven have OT. So you constantly have to advocate, you have to market yourself. You have to show value in your treatments and your conversations to people, because otherwise you’re going to get kind of swept under the rug.
TNOTA staff: That’s a great answer. Especially in a work environment, even outside of health care, where worker advocacy like that – self advocacy – is being more and more emphasized and being seen as more and more important, especially to younger generations.
I think that’s a great piece of advice for someone considering OT.
Amanda: Yes, I think so. I’ve actually been really blessed for the last three and a half years or so.
My OT now was actually one of my fieldwork placements as a level two COTA student, and we just became really good friends. And then she went back for her MSOT and worked on me really hard to leave outpatient and come to work with her.
We’re on the phone with each other every day. And it’s like, “Okay, well, how are we going to pitch [occupational therapy] to the office? How are we going to pitch it to the physician?”
She has a little more free time than I do, so she has met with several doctors, and we have done events at assisted living facilities and the like, just trying to get our face and our name out there.
At the end of the day, it’s very much a team effort for the advocacy, and you can’t be afraid to speak out and market yourself because it’s very easy to take the back seat.
TNOTA staff: Oh yeah, 100%. I love that it’s a personal connection that brought you into work too.
Amanda: It has worked out well and she reminds me of it at least weekly. Laughter
TNOTA staff: Well, Amanda, thank you so much for your time. I think I have everything that I need to put together an interview style article for the newsletter.
Do you have any questions for me or anything that you need from TNOTA?
Amanda: No, thank you. Honestly, I was really surprised when I got your email. It was really wonderful to hear from somebody, and just have someone reach out from TNOTA to listen and ask about our experience.
TNOTA staff: Yeah, absolutely, that’s great to hear. Well, I’m sure this is going to be the first of many! I’m only staff for TNOTA, so I don’t get to set the direction for the organization or anything like that (that’s really left to our volunteers and leadership), but one of the staff team’s goals for our support of the association is exactly that: to put more faces and names together within TNOTA, and share more of these personal stories from within Tennessee, so that there is a greater general awareness of what OT practitioners do as professionals.
We [staff] see you guys as a a extremely important health professional that needs a lot more attention than you get currently.
Amanda: Well, we appreciate it! And like I said, it’s definitely a team effort. Between all of us, we can improve the state of OT and the communities we work in.
TNOTA staff: Absolutely. Well, if you do need anything, please let me know. And thank you again for your time, Amanda. This has been great.
Amanda: Absolutely. Thank you!