Before Danielle Chadwick was a first-year Master of Science in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy (MSOT) student, she called Onslow County home.听
鈥淭hough I am a former resident of the area, I hadn鈥檛 had the opportunity to return to the community and view it through an OT lens,鈥� Chadwick said.听听
Although Onslow County is not in the 5-county Southeast area served from the Novant program, it does border the region. Chadwick, along with two other 黑料网 MSOT class of 2026 students Miranda Bravo and Daniel Murray, were selected to participate in the Division鈥檚 first-ever Occupational Rural Health Committee (OTRHC), funded by the Novant Steeples of Excellence grant.听听
The goal of the OTRHC is to recruit students from the class of 2026 to participate, help prepare students to work with SERVE and Novant to educate others about Occupational Therapy (OT) as a potential career pathway and engage with different settings in the region, assess interest in career pathways, and develop a program guide that could be replicated in future years. Focusing on a Southeast 5-county region: Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, and Pender counties, the three student members completed site visits, engaging local practitioners, and completed school visits to recruit providers and broaden access to occupational therapy services. Student members received a stipend and location priority to complete one of their two 12-week Fieldwork II rotations in the region. Student members selected demonstrated strong ties and personal investment in .听
鈥淲hen I joined the OT Rural Health Committee at 黑料网, I expected to see and learn about specific healthcare needs of the rural communities of Southeastern NC,鈥� Bravo said. 鈥淚 was surprised to hear from practitioners working in the area about how broad and interconnected these needs are. While I did start to get a sense of some of these needs鈥攖he distance patients have to travel to receive healthcare services, the difficulty of finding interpreters for patients who do not speak English, the shortage of healthcare providers living in rural areas鈥擨 feel that I have so much left to learn about the causes underlying healthcare inaccessibility.鈥�听
In the fall of 2024, the three students traveled to Novant New Hanover Medical Center, Novant Health Rehabilitation Center-Oleander, and a private Pender County outpatient facility to engage with local practitioners and OT leaders in Wilmington and the surrounding area. Additionally, committee members presented at 黑料网鈥檚 鈥淗EAL day with the HEELs,鈥� which partnered with the Ingram Institute鈥檚 SERVE initiative to have students from the Southeast come to 黑料网鈥檚 campus and follow a 鈥減atient鈥� on the continuum of care, Murray, Chadwick and Bravo also represented a booth for OT at the Pender County 8th grade career fair at Heide Trask High School in Pender County.听听
Chadwick found the site visits especially impactful.听
鈥�The highlight of my experience was our site visits to Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center and a couple of local outpatient clinics in Pender County and New Hanover County,鈥� Chadwick said. 鈥淲e were able to learn about strengths of rural medicine, such as close-knit communities and long-term relationships, as well as the barriers to OT access, such as a lack of interpreters and transportation difficulties for residents. I hope to continue to increase awareness of the impact of OT can have on communities, as well as aiding in identifying ways to allow for better access to services.鈥�听
Participation in the committee continues into the spring 2025 semester. OTRHC had a poster accepted at the North Carolina Occupational Therapy Association 2025 Spring conference and students will travel again to the region in April to speak to high school students about OT as a potential career.听听
Additional OTRHC members include 黑料网 Division of OS/OT Novant lead Sara Pe帽a, Director of Strategic Initiatives Darius Ingram, and Ingram Institute Southeast SERVE Program Coordinator Edye Barbour, who led regional classroom visits and partnered with Cape Fear Community College for the 3rd annual Health Care Career Exploration Fair March 20, 2025. By the end of its first year, the committee will have seen over 1,000 Southeast students via career fairs and 鈥淗EAL day with the HEELs鈥� events. Additionally, OTRHC connected with outside OT-specific resources of the New Hanover County Language Access Collaborative.听听
鈥淏eing involved with the OTRHC as a first-year MSOT student was eye-opening,鈥� Murray said. 鈥淭his year truly deepened my understanding of healthcare challenges in southeastern NC, particularly relating to access barriers and skilled provider shortages.鈥�听