What I re - learned this year

Hustle? Yes, we SLP's have hustle in spades (hearts, clubs, and diamonds)! Whether squeezing in an improvised consumer visit, or an unexpected hard right turn to the daily schedule, we always have a higher gear.

 

Traveling among facilities I serve, there may be texts and emails to scan and process. Voice calls from consumers and their supports need answering. The therapy session for which you had prepared the BEST customized materials ever, need be replaced with a priority evaluation you discovered when arriving at your next stop. A family meeting for which you had mentally budgeted fifteen minutes, is now running past AN HOUR and fifteen minutes. The COVID - 19 mitigations are changing again, so an ad hoc training meeting is called. Hustle. 

 

Discipline? Pish tosh. People depend on us. We have great science, great methods and great history to keep us focused and propelled to reach the best outcomes possible. 

I think many of us would want to wear a patch that resembles the image above, if we have a standard work uniform like a scrub outfit. The medieval scribe toiled and squinted endless hours to get manuscripts copied. We squint, toil, copy and paste, curse at files lost that must be redone, and distill often detailed observations into rigid technical prose. It's what we do. It drives the healthcare and educational systems. It isn't what we aspired to do, when graduate training started. It's what we get flagellated for when it's not done well, and for which we flagellate our tablets, laptops, desktops and phones to get through the workday. It's what we do.

Power? We help people communicate, think and swallow better. As the slogan asks, what's your superpower? 

The more we do 'that voodoo that speech therapists do' (a manager actually told me that once), the more we realize and take to heart that our profession is one of civilizations great levelers; that even with the wide and deep reach the field now has, we have - all clinicians of all credentials,  in all settings - the wish to help all who have a need, to grow their quality of life throughout their lives. This is what we really do. 
 

Farewell to 2020, so fast, and all the best to my colleagues, their circles of support, and all people they support, all around the world!