Occupational Therapy Instructor Earns Doctorate
December 21, 2023 – Dr. Chioma Lindo worked as an occupational therapist for years before beginning her teaching career at Kettering College. She had a deep understanding of the field and enjoyed the work she did to connect to clients as individuals to help them lead more fulfilling lives.
In 2019 she began a doctoral program in Health Science at the University of Indianapolis to enhance her education and extensive experience in occupational therapy. She recently successfully defended her dissertation and graduated from the program. She says, “The classes helped me further develop my skills in teaching because they were related to higher education, student learning, student learning outcomes, and assessing the educational experience.”
She says her advanced degree has already helped her in her current role as an assistant professor by expanding the boundaries of what she can do and research. As part of her doctoral program, Dr. Lindo was able to develop one of the current Occupational Therapy courses at Kettering College, OTD 735. The class is a clinical reasoning simulation lab, which is an innovative offering, thanks to Dr. Lindo’s research and studies.
Her dissertation was focused on trauma and was titled The Black American Perception of Trauma and Sense of Well-Being. She says this was her specific focus because she wanted to peel back the layers of the statistics and dig deeper to examine perceptions. She says, “There’s over 50% of people –and some stats say close to 80%– who have experienced a traumatic adverse experience, and that increases if you are a Black American.”
“We know the things that cause trauma, and the outcomes can be short and long-term. People who have experienced trauma in their childhood, for example, have physiological outcomes that extend into adulthood, with increased instances of things such as stroke, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or cancer. But I wanted to know about people’s perception of the things that cause trauma.”
She points out that in quantitative surveys about the trauma experience, we see it can lead to physical decline, but what Dr. Lindo questioned in her dissertation was whether people who are experiencing trauma on an ongoing basis recognize it as trauma or merely their daily experiences.
As she crafted her research and writing she referred to trauma as “adverse experiences that impact your ability to function or be healthy.” She investigated if people were making connections between their adverse experiences and their physical and mental health. She looked at Black Americans’ perceptions of these correlations and how those perceptions can have future implications when people view their lived experiences as nothing more than survival mode.
Dr. Chioma Lindo’s doctoral manuscript was 93 pages of knowledge, research, and discoveries that will translate into deeper learning and critical thinking for her students. The work she devoted to earning her doctorate will continue to help Occupational Therapy students view each person as an individual with complex and rich backgrounds, experiences, and perceptions. This expansive knowledge will encourage students to continue to view health as holistic and that behind every statistic is a unique human.
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