Where are you placed this year?
I am currently placed at Denver Health
Describe your "typical" day (or lack of "typical" day)
I work five days a week, and each day is split into half days. So one day I could be seeing infants and
pediatrics in the morning for diagnostics, and adult hearing aids in the afternoon. During any given week, I typically see a mix of diagnostic audios for peds and adults, adult hearing aid fitting appointments and follow up appointments, ENT clinic, and VNG appointments. Some
weeks I am in the OR completing sedated ABRs or intraoperative monitoring.
What's something important that you've learned at your placement so far?
Denver Health works with a lot of patients from different cultural backgrounds who speak languages other than English. I have learned very quickly to feel comfortable using interpreters almost daily, and conveying information efficiently and in a way that doesn't use a lot of
audiology jargon. The practice of using interpreters and working with different cultures has been great and really makes you think outside of the box on how to explain results in a way that would make sense.
Any words of wisdom?
You are still a student during your fourth year, take advantage of it! You are not expected to know all of the things. Be open to doing things differently than how you were taught the past few years, whether that be the flow of appointments, or testing protocols. I think this is especially true if you are working on a big team of audiologists - so many different brains to pick about all things audiology and all with different backgrounds (educational, private practice, medical, etc). A lot of preceptors encourage you to try out different things, keep what you like, and not what you don't like! And lastly, your fourth year is only one year, choose a placement that fits your needs and what you are interested in learning more about while you are still a student!