"Oh YES, they call her the geek;
All her test data is on fleek;
She can treat from Sholem to Sadiq,
But keep a super mystique; -
Yes, she's an SLP GEEK!"
(with apologies to Ray Stevens)
Even though there are minute distinctions to be made among
geeks, nerds, dweebs and dorks, I feel the need to use only one of these discerning terms when describing an SLP who loves to dabble in the arcana of the work we do. The colorful Venn diagram you see below shows that a
geek melds the best of "intelligence" and "obsession", in forming her world view of - in this case - the professions.
Would a
dweeb make it as a clinician? Running the gauntlet of practicum classes, then an internship or two, then the CFY - ?! How about a
dork? The endless cycles of push - pull, of Lucy saying, "Ricky, I want to sing with your band!", then finding out she doesn't have the pipes for the work, would be exhausting...and let's just forget the
nerd; at the mercy of all these forces in the Venn diagram, you may as well be a - an elocutionist!
Geek = intelligence + obsession. You solve problems and you want to do it so badly. The culture of training, our business models and our practice patterns all breed geekness. When your practice is expected to be evidence - based, that means hypotheses to test; variables to be juggled; sample sizes to optimize; literature to review and conclusions to weigh. We want to be smart in solving the problems, that persons served bring to our offices to solve. We want to put in the hours; the weeks, months, semesters, years, to make our profession more than the best kept secret in town."Are we not men? We are geeks!".
