OPINION EDITORIAL | Things You Cannot Learn in School

By Sarah Lundstrom

This article is a part of the March/April 2022, Volume 34, Number 2, Audiology Today issue. 

Starting out as a new professional is an exhilarating, but an intimidating, experience. School has served as a safety net where new things were tested and risks were taken, all under the watchful eye of our clinical instructors.

There were no real consequences for making mistakes and plenty of opportunities for second chances. After all, we were just students and we were still learning. School teaches us how to be audiologists. We learn everything from acoustics to auditory rehabilitation. Our education prepared us for many aspects of being an audiologist, but there are some things you cannot learn in school.

Make It Personal

One of the most difficult struggles a young audiologist must face is how to demonstrate their expertise. It may be challenging to feel like the expert when you may not have fully acclimated to your new role or found your confidence as a professional.

We may feel a need to demonstrate our level of knowledge by overwhelming patients with technical jargon. Though education is an important part of patient interactions, counseling should be a shared experience.

We have all had the “engineer” patient who wants all the details—the number of channels, the different features, and how the feedback manager works—but typically patients want to know how the hearing aid can help them.

It is important to make your consultation personal by speaking about improvements or outcomes that address specific areas of concern or interest to the patient. Use more general terms, as opposed to technical terms, that express benefits in words and phrases reflecting the quality-of-life improvements.