Voice clinic

I forgot to mention that I got to observe in a voice clinic yesterday. It was very interesting. Speech-language pathology continues to amaze me with how freakin' diverse the opportunities are within the field. It is wide open. I can end up working with kids, babies, seniors, middle-agers, whoever. And it could involve disorders in swallowing, articulation, language, voice, accent modification. And I could work in any of the following settings: schools, hospitals, clinics, private practice (!), who knows!

Anyway, I went to Park Nicollet's St. Louis Park voice clinic yesterday and got to sit in on appointments with two different patients. HIPAA rules prevent me from writing about specifics here, but it was just pretty cool. I watched two different types of scopes being done. One is a long rod that they stick in your mouth (you have your tongue sticking out, and you're saying "eeeee" as much as you can). On the end of the rod is a camera that is shooting video of your vocal folds (cord) to see if there is any damage to them. Another scope consists of a little tube that fits up your nose with a camera on the end of it. It goes up your nasal passage, down your throat and again gives you a great view of your vocal folds. By making the patients make sounds or sing verses of a song while the scope is in place, we were able to see if there was any swelling, nodes, etc. on them. Pretty sweet. What I liked about it was how it seems that every day would be different. You are able to talk to different people, help them out (hopefully) and your day goes by so fast. I think I'm going to try to observe at the same clinic again sometime and hopefully sit in on some treatment/voice therapy to see another side of it. Just fyi, the people who would usually come to a voice clinic are teachers, singers, etc. -- people who use their voices a lot and develop problems like hoarseness, nodes, etc.

This makes me excited to check out some other clinics and other settings, like schools too. I'll find out soon (within the next month, hopefully) if I'll have a clinical practicum placement this summer. I'm guessing I will have some kind of placement with children since I'm currently taking a class called Language and Cognitive Disorders in Children, and I haven't taken the adult language class yet. So yeah, I'm getting pumped and excited about hopefully being able to work with some people this summer and start getting my feet wet!