Speech Pathologist Interview

Speech Pathologist Interview: Ms. Caraway
For my first graded assignment in this class, I decided to interview a speech pathologist, named Ms. Caraway, that I’ve known for many years. Ms. Caraway initially became interested in deaf education at a young age in grade school, sometime after being introduced to sign language. She was fascinated by it, and eventually it led her to a class project in junior high that involved shadowing a professional. She shadowed a speech-language pathologist and observed many sides of the profession. She decided on that day, “This is what I am meant to do.”
I really enjoyed having the opportunity to interview Ms. Caraway. Hearing her first-hand experiences was a great way for me to recognize that there’s
many different specialties in the field of speech pathology. I was only focusing on working in a school environment in the future, but Ms. Caraway reminded me that there’s multiple options of specialties when deciding to become an SLP. She helped me realize that the field is always changing, and my interests may change too. I know now not to put my blinders on and miss out on all the field has to offer. I will for sure be keeping an open mind.
Ms.
Caraway has worked in a rehabilitation hospital for several years, and has recently changed her career path as a SLP. She has transitioned from rehab to home, long term care (dementia), behavioral psych to outpatient and inpatient services within the whole spectrum of speech, including swallow studies. Her biggest challenge now is getting back into the swing of things she has not done in years, like working with children for example. Her schedule any given day may include evaluation and/or treatment of dysphagia, language, pragmatic, stuttering, dysarthria, articulation, phonology and more. She typically does her rounds on the inpatient floor of the hospital and sees outpatients. One day a week, she has a set morning dedicated for the swallowing
studies.
Ms. Caraway is responsible for evaluations, goals, treatments, educating (parents, significant others, patients), referrals, training staff if needed, and multidisciplinary with other medical staff. She has experience working with communication disorders such as articulation/phonological, expressive/receptive language, dysphagia, aphasia, dysphagia, autism, pragmatics, and cognition, but most of her experiences are in language, cognition, and dysphagia.
According to Ms. Caraway, the best aspect of being a SLP is being part of a team to assist someone in living their best life, while the worst is witnessing firsthand the impact of diseases, syndromes, and disorders on people and their lives… and also paperwork. I asked Ms. Caraway about some of her most challenging cases/patients and how she has handled them. The most challenging patients she’s experienced so far were very involved in CVA; treatment of dysphagia and aphasia. He challenging patients are low level, have difficulty following directions, not oriented, have limited language, and/or have a NPO/G-tube. She involves the family and educates them on how they can interact with each other. She has as open communication with staff, PT/OT on communication barriers and swallow function. She is also honest with family on prognosis and carryover. Ms.
Caraway feels that she absolutely makes a significant difference in her client’s lives. As part of treatment, she monitors goals as progress to upgrade or downgrade as needed to elicit and establish progress. Progress doesn’t always happen, but most of the time it does. She recommends this career to people all the time. She believes that speech-pathologists are just now breaking ground on all the things SLPs can offer. She is seeing new specialties being embraced in this profession such as head and neck cancer. One of Ms. Caraway’s greatest accomplishments as a SLP would be having a pizza part to celebrate a patient going home. He had been in a bad car wreck and came to the hospital rehab in a semi-comatose state with a G-tube, trach, no communication, bed bound, and had limited reflexes with a low rating on the Glasgow coma scale. After recovering, they spent the day sitting around a table eating pizza and telling jokes. Ms. Caraway remembers the day he first opened his eyes like it happened
yesterday.