Be well read

I didn't start wearing corrective lenses until I had turned 21. For years and years (it seems an eternity when you are young - becoming an adult) I had read, read and read some more. I had read at school; at home in every orientation in space; in the library; in the car; and wherever else I could make a book's world my own. There were board books and chapter books; books read aloud, books on cassette and then those portrayed on TV, encouraging me to read them; books out of library stacks that needed immaculate protection, those that were issued by my school and required a pristine look at turn-in; and my own constantly mutating collection of books. It was so much fun to be a reader from an early age. The apocryphal story in my family was that I had learned to read before I finally talked. True or not;  I was a reading guy, and it was such a fuel for my life. The tortoise shell frames with my first glasses at 21; - they were just my attempt at a first fashion statement, after being able to read with less eye strain.

Reading is, of course, a discipline that is obligatory to begin and sustain your SLP career. If a clinician-researcher does not master the skills to digest not only the source material for core professional knowledge, but also the allied and supplementary material from fields deemed interprofessional - sharing some knowledge base with SLP - the marketability of the SLP will be marginal. Many in the field want to be specialists, whether that be in autism, augmentative/alternative communication, aphasiology, assistive technology, or additional specialties. Those professionals who want to "drill down" and understand in depth, a narrow focus for professional practice, will have their niche firmly in hand when they read all the necessary literature with fluency. The alternate end of this continuum of professional readers, may hold the generalist who has, out of human nature's demands, some professional strengths but is also prepared to serve anyone who seeks out this practice. Reading by the generalist allows access to knowledge bases across the entire professional spectrum, and in general, superior research skills that facilitate working with all persons having the needs of a well read SLP clinician.

Yet, even beyond the professional reading that the SLP clinician carries as a perpetual responsibility - there is the need and obligation to read for work-life balance, for pleasure, and for growing as a literate professional who can engage with most persons served. I have regularly heard from my fellow students and colleagues, that they do not have time to read outside the professional sphere. I often do not directly respond, but that is because I have had to lift my mandible off the ground and reattach to my jaw. I would go BONKERS BAT CRAZY if I did not pick up newspapers, magazines and books, in addition to all the professional reading I do. Besides feeding my incessant curiosity about the world, reading prepares me to be more like the people I serve. When I have built up my store of general education, I am better prepared to relate well to persons seeking my services; - to find their areas of interest and establish connections based on what the person and I share. So read, read, read, my colleagues - read everything!

Be a CNA!

Back in the day, they called the position "orderly". There were meal trays to pass, trash cans to keep empty, pre-operative shaves for male patients, and room lights to answer for the nurses. In the first full time job I had assumed after high school, I was an orderly in the county general hospital - thanks largely to my grandmother, on the nursing staff and one of my most powerful moral compasses. "Monie" knew I needed not just a job, but a job that challenged my emotional and social architecture. There had been a part-time stint of bagging groceries at the Kroger, but I was such an unfocused dweeb at that - also, my trig teacher had been a supervisor at the store, so GEEZ - what a blemish on my future if I had tried to stay! I couldn't not be successful at this hospital job, and at $1.65/hour - I had it all. Money in my pocket. Nurses and aides to keep me constantly moving and teach me things. Hostess fruit pies and Pepsi's for lunch! Any thought of my future career was at the time, only a nugget of light I didn't know I owned deep in my consciousness. Working as an orderly/CNA was a life pivot that, now, I wouldn't trade for all the stock options littering Wall Street.

On the one hand, why would you rhapsodize about a job where you were on the bottom of the hospital pecking order? An SLP is trained and conditioned to work with and communicate with doctors, nurses, psychologists, educators, parents, rad technologists and the like. You are entrusted to be in most settings, semi-autonomous and self-driven to manage your caseload and advocate for persons served. The orderly was instead, task- and criterion-driven to work down a checklist of responsibilities for a shift. Making beds with sharp hospital corners! Collecting meal trays for dietary staff!  Collecting, as an elderly Italian-American man once offered up, the "UREEN" for the lab! Yet, as I learned the job on a urology ward and later in the hospital's ER, then in a university hospital (ENT ward, general surgery clinic) and nursing home in Iowa - there was so much more.

With more and more work experience, I made the transition from completing non-medical to routine medical tasks. With knowledge I had accumulated about the medical conditions of persons served, I got the chance to assist nurses and doctors in frequent procedures. Catheter placements! Staple removal!! Nasogastric tube feeding!!! I learned to be vigilant for persons' needs - whether physical or emotional. I was pulled out of my shy dweeb shell, when forced to check in frequently with those persons assigned to me: as a result, I grew to know each person very well. I got to know the units on which these persons were housed very well, too. As a speech -language pathologist that will engage with these facilities, whether they are medical or long-term care, I respect the direct care staff and seek their advice for best care of the person served.

And so, WHY do I feel privileged to have been a CNA?  The skill set that grew out of those work experiences includes:

* physical effort in patient care, higher than that of most SLP's: hard physical work feels good!
* work processes of high frequency, that extend across diagnostic categories to meet criteria of a treatment plan: you can have a lot of pride in work that is repetitive and of low complexity.
* interpersonal communication experiences across ages, both genders and all socioeconomic tiers: when people are ill or convalescing, having someone to listen to them can spur healing. 
* being THE direct care staff who knows the person served very well, and serves as an advocate for them with the healthcare system: frequent attention to the person served only strengthens the therapeutic alliance. 

 

Be an SLP!

The types and numbers of persons who join the professions - they are as infinite as the number of points between any two points. And, even though this blog has attempted to point out what's what about being a speech-language pathologist, it's extremely difficult to capture all the relevant skill sets and perspectives that people like me employ. So,we'll have another series of short posts following this one, that give you new, fresh and tasty views of what is means to be an SLP!

Coming from an individual SLP; this is, of course, a personal view. The paths that many of our professions' founders followed, as well as those of some of our colleagues, to nurture and grow the mission of service to our communities....what a long, strange trip it's been.

During my graduate training, an earlier review text for the national credentialling exam (PRAXIS) was Perkins' SPEECH PATHOLOGY: An Applied Interdisciplinary Behavioral Science. Interdisciplinary: that's the rub. People have come to wear the clinical cloak from the whole world. Everyone communicates and swallows, and we'll give some examples of perspectives on the field in succeeding posts. The topics will ask if you would be a CNA; someone well read; a geek; a servant; an entrepreneur; a team player, a conscience; a good citizen; a healer or a scholar. It's such a big world, that brings the next generation of practitioner/researchers to lead our fields.

What do you bring to the worktable? Looking forward to responses from readers of this blog, about what makes a quality SLP.