Student Spotlight | Miyah Kailey

The possibilities person

Why Miyah Kailey is in no hurry to narrow her path in occupational therapy

By Erika Nakatsui · October 2026

Miyah Kailey, MScOT student at Calgary Campus

One of Miyah Kailey’s favourite memories from her first year of occupational therapy is an afternoon spent passing adaptive equipment around a room. She and her Calgary classmates tried each piece, worked out what it was for and laughed a lot along the way.

That afternoon says a lot about how Miyah approaches her program. She’s curious, she learns best by doing, and she’s in no hurry to narrow her focus.

Endless possibilities

What drew her to OT was what she calls “the endless possibilities.” She wanted a career in health care that would let her work with many kinds of people, in many kinds of settings, on questions that are still being answered. Her first year told her she’d chosen well.

“Occupational therapy is such a diverse field since occupation exists everywhere and anywhere,” she says. “I was surprised by how you can make your practice as broad or as specific as you want.”

Her interests already reflect that range. She hopes to work in advocacy for long-term rehabilitation services, and she’s exploring where cannabis research meets occupational science. Few people are working in that area yet, which is part of what appeals to her.

“Occupation exists everywhere and anywhere.”

Miyah Kailey

Thinking beyond discharge

Her own background has shaped how she thinks about access to care. Growing up with a sense of how limited health services can be in rural communities, she has come to see discharge planning differently.

“Addressing current needs is not sufficient when a client lives rurally,” she says. “We need to be thinking about how things may look at home in three, six and even nine months.”

A community from Day 1

The Calgary cohort has given her something she didn’t expect to value so much: a close community from Day 1. Her classmates study together, support each other and trust one another, which makes the hard parts of the program easier to carry.

As she starts her second year, Miyah has plenty she still wants to figure out. She’s happy about that.