Transforming lives and discovering your passion in co-op | Co-operative Education

Himani Patel (she/her) is a third-year student in Health Sciences. She shares her journey of working with patients and discovering her future career path through her co-op experience.

Himani's co-op journey

Work term one: Himani first worked at the in the Science and Research Branch, where her role was as a research policy and program analyst. Here, her tasks focused on administrative work and managing the behind-the-scenes aspects of research proposals. She also supported the senior staff with all the proposals that they received from different institutions across Canada.

Work term two: This term, Himani is completing her second work term at as a client experience member and clinic assistant. In this role, she takes a more hands-on approach with patients, working closely with individuals undergoing rehabilitation and recovering from injuries.

Q & A with Himani

What do you enjoy about working at the Spot Rehab Clinic?

“I do a lot more work where I’m shadowing the physiotherapists, seeing how they go about their day caring for their patients. I’m also working with the patients themselves, doing exercise programs or recommending different ways that they could improve their health at home.”

“I really like how in this role I’m doing more hands-on work. In my first co-op job, I was doing a lot more administrative work at a desk. Here, I’m talking to patients and following their progress over a series of visits.”

“I’ve seen how a lot of our patients have developed over the past few months and now they’re a lot better. They feel like they’ve improved and their injuries are better. It’s nice to see how I’ve been able to follow them along in that path.”

What is something you’ve learned from your co-op terms?

“I’ve learned how to do research work. There are hundreds of proposals coming from institutions that are focusing on different ways of improving community health, whether it's through changing policies, introducing new gadgets or devices, things like that.”

“I’ve also learned to work in a more hands-on environment where I’m working face-to-face with the person who's facing an issue and I’m able to help them over multiple appointments.”

“On a personal level, I’ve learned that doing research work isn’t something that’s for me. Even though it was a really interesting component of my position, it’s not something I would take on as a long-term career. Maybe working in a clinic, getting to work with physiotherapists, other people continuously every day and seeing the same faces is something that I would enjoy.”

How has co-op helped you with your career goals?

“The main thing that co-op has helped me learn is the hard and soft skills I need to learn for my career. My goals are now more communication and physiotherapy focused.”

“When I started at ��ݮ��Ƶ, I didn't have a specific idea of what courses to take. I had been taking general courses following my course sequence for Health Sciences. But now that I know that I want to do something in sports rehabilitation, I can start taking more courses that are related to that. So, courses like anatomy, sports injuries, biomechanics, gait mechanics and things like that.”

“I know that in the long term, pursuing physiotherapy school is an option, as I’ve taken the necessary courses now. The position I'm currently in has helped me figure out that physiotherapy is one of my interests as a career goal in the long term.”

When I came to ��ݮ��Ƶ, I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I felt so behind. The ��ݮ��Ƶ co-op program is really great to get an idea of different roles and using that knowledge can be useful to figure out exactly what you really enjoy doing.

Himani Patel

What’s next for you?

“I'm going to focus more on tailoring my course sequence, maybe adding more courses that are related to careers I'm interested in while also taking electives that are fun.”

“I'm also going to work on building my skills in physiotherapy. Right now, I try to shadow as many of the physiotherapists in the clinic to understand the patient experience, what kind of injuries they focus on and how they go about the rehabilitation process.”

“I plan to do more shadowing in the clinic so I get an idea of what my future might look like. Then also building my skills in communication, patient interaction, understanding admin work and just doing things that I know I’ll experience on a day-to-day basis so that I'm able to prepare for the future.”