I was deeply moved by “the knitting brain” picture from Emily Balog. It instantly transported me to my experience as an OT student over 40 years ago during my affiliation in Mental Health OT at Johns Hopkins Hospital. It all started when a COTA who was part of my supervision team started teaching me to knit saying “John, this is what OT is all about”. A psychiatric nurse on my unit saw me, and was inspired to knit a blanket for our Psychiatric Resident who was expecting a baby. The psychiatric resident knitted the nurse a thank you gift, and pretty soon many patients and staff were knitting on the unit.
A new medical student rotating through our psychiatric unit who wanted to be a surgeon, asked me if I thought learning to knit would improve his surgical knots. I told him yes so he started knitting too. But more than fine motor skills, I think the knitting improved unit cohesion, the empathy of the patients and staff, social skills, and brain functioning. Occupations are just like that.
