Things have been really busy with graduation and the subsequent studying for the Boards. But I just wanted to let everyone know that I am still alive!

In my previous post, Dr. Iwama honored me by posting a comment with a link to his website that explained the Kawa Model, and I was going to attempt to explain it in my own words, but I realized that his website explains it best, and my summary didn’t give the model the proper respect. So check out his website on the Kawa Model!

Wow. That’s all I can say after meeting Dr. Michael Iwama, founder of the Kawa (river) Model. As graduation approaches (7 days!), we had a Scholarship Day, where we presented our findings from our research projects. For the past 6 months, we developed, planned, implemented, and analyzed data for various research projects. So at Scholarship Day, we presented our findings to the entire faculty, as well as the keynote speaker.

We were fortunate enough to have Dr. Michael Iwama come in from the University of Toronto to give his keynote speech. His speech today was about culture, and how it can be defined as people who come from different spheres of experiences. Overall, it was a great speech. It is really interesting how people from different cultures conceptualize occupation and the way intervention should be. After meeting Dr. Iwama, I discovered that he is a “cool” guy, who is very interested in hearing what you have to say, and has a great demeanor.

As the only male graduating this semester, I made sure to get a picture of the two of us, and when I posted it on my Facebook account, he even commented on it! Not only that, but he responded to my email, when I thanked him for coming.

So in summary, this was a great day, as I got to meet one of the up and coming influential people in occupational therapy. I happen to like this model a lot, and see it as being very useful in working with patients from different cultures. Everyone should check out his website, as well as the discussion forums, which Dr. Iwama checks regularly and responds to people’s questions and comments.

Just out of curiosity, are any of my readers familiar with the Kawa Model? Should I make a post about the model?