‘That’s cool… What’s an audiologist?’

You know when you go to family functions and everyone asks you the same thing for the millionth gazillionth time… what are you going to school for again? Okay, maybe you don’t, but I get asked it A LOT! It’s not that it bothers me, I like the fact that extended family is taking interest in what I am doing (or they feel like they need to make small talk). Either way, I enjoy talking about my schooling and what it is that I am going to school for.

So what exactly would that be?! An audiologist… well duh, it’s not as if I haven’t already talked about that before. But I think I sometimes take my knowledge of what an audiologist is and assume other people know as well. And that definitely isn’t always the case. Actually, I’ve run into many people who don’t know what it is. Can’t say I always knew what it was either, but because I am so well versed in this communicative disorder (and starting to gain more knowledge in the audiology area) I sometimes forget that others don’t know.

Okay, back to my my point, what is an audiologist. Wikipedia describes it as…

‘An audiologist is a healthcare professional specializing in identifying, diagnosing, treating and monitoring disorders of the auditory and vestibular system portions of the ear. Audiologists are trained to diagnose, manage and/or treat hearing or balance problems ^[1]. They dispense hearing aids and recommend and map cochlear implants. They counsel families through a new diagnosis of hearing loss in infants, and help teach coping and compensation skills to late-deafened adults. They also help design and implement personal and industrial hearing safety programs, newborn hearing screening programs, school hearing screening programs, and provide special fitting ear plugs and other hearing protection devices to help prevent hearing loss. In addition, many audiologists work as auditory scientists in a research capacity.

Audiologists have training in anatomy and physiology, hearing aids, cochlear implants, electrophysiology, acoustics, neurology, counseling and sign language. An Audiologist usually graduates with one of the following qualifications (BSc, AuD, or MS *actually they require a doctorates degree now), depending the program attended.’

And so there you have it… at least a somewhat condensed version. Usually I just tell people that it’s an ear doctor, which in some sorts it is, but when it comes to diagnosing something like an ear infection, that we cannot do. We can tell our patients/clients (whatever the correct terminology is these days, we use both interchangeably at the clinic) that the ear drum looks red and refer them to their physician and/or suggest they go see their doctor to get it checked out. We cannot formerly say ‘You have an ear infection’ and write out a perscription, even if we know that that is the case. So ear doctor isn’t technically correct as I presume many people think of ear infections when I say that.

My dream job would be to work with children who need cochlear implants and be a part of that team. Until recently that would have required me to live around the Children’s Hospital area as I’m pretty sure what was the only hospital that does that, in Wisconsin at least, but I could be mistaken. At any rate, I know now that Marshfield has recently started doing them as well and that is definitely a lot closer to my current residence. However, we are talking four years from now and I may very well find a different path that I love and go into that. I’m keeping my eyes and ears open!

Anyways, just though I would enlighten you with what an audiologist does, if you didn’t already know. And if you did, well now you just refreshed your memory.

CIAO! LOVE ME!