By Therese Walden

This article is a part of the January/February 2017, Volume 29, Number 1, Audiology Today issue.

Another smashing group of young professionals assembled at the American Academy of Audiology headquarters in Reston, Virginia, September 11–13, 2016. Chair and former JFLACer Lisa Christensen (class of 2008) and Academy staff member Sarah Sebastian, along with many other Academy staff, pulled off another successful Jerger Future Leaders of Audiology Conference and spurred these young professionals back into their world equipped with new perspectives and upgraded leadership skill sets, as well as many new friends and colleagues.

With an aggressive agenda that included a history lesson of the Academy and the profession from Founder and Past President Brad Stach, an overview of Academy operations from the Executive Director Tanya Tolpegin, a visit to Capitol Hill to talk to legislators, work on their DiSC profiles led by Jeffrey Cufaude, numerous other leadership talks, and a special ‘hot topic’ project; these young professionals truly experienced lives in the leadership fast lane. The hot topic project was especially engaging as the attendees were assigned to one of the following six topic areas:

  • Importance of clinical research
  • Accessibility of hearing aids
  • Affordability of hearing aids
  • Attrition of audiologists
  • Audiologic management of the whole patient
  • Public awareness of audiology

Along with their partners, they were to come up with a five-minute ignite presentation that told a story with 20 slides that were automatically advanced after 15 seconds…talk about reducing a topic to its essence! But they did it and they did it really well.

What the JFLACers learned from this exercise and the whole of the conference is that audiology is an awesome and engaging profession. Although we have issues that need to be addressed to advance the profession, they learned that they, as leaders, are part of the solutions.

JFLAC 2106 was made possible through a partnership between the Academy, the AAA Foundation, The Oticon Foundation, as well as past JFLACers Dr. Melissa Heche (class of 2010) and Dr. Bre Myers (class of 2012). Thank you for your generosity and moral support!

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