Anita Whitner - Student Blog 6/2/25

Hey everyone!

Baker’s Dozen is officially back at IIOP and already off to a strong start. First, a quick look back at how we wrapped up last semester!

Before heading into break, we had the chance to attend the Spring '24 senior symposium and watch the graduating class present their final projects. It was incredibly inspiring to see how far they’ve come and imagine where we’ll be a year from now. Not long after, we celebrated a huge milestone of our own: the White Coat Ceremony! Surrounded by friends, family, and our amazing faculty, we proudly received our coats and officially stepped into the clinical phase of our O&P journey.

One of the highlights so far has been completing our upper extremity orthotics course. We fabricated custom wrist-hand orthoses (WHOs) and elbow orthoses, which included us doing our very first pull using heated thermoplastics. It was such a rewarding moment to see our skills come to life. We even wrapped up the unit with a fun cornhole tournament using the elbow orthoses we made, proof that orthotics can be both functional and fun!

We also had the opportunity to practice fitting and customizing off-the-shelf orthoses on each other, which gave us a great introduction to clinical problem-solving and device adjustment across different body types.

Now, we're especially excited for what's next. This upcoming week, we’ll begin working with patient models for the first time! It's a huge step forward and we can’t wait to start applying what we've learned in a more realistic setting.

— Spring 2025 Cohort