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Sarah - Audiologist
77 Plays1 year ago
Sarah has been an audiologist for many years and now she teaches future generations her same skillset. We dive into the career of audiology, we discuss pay, education requirements, hearing aids, tinnitus, cochlear implants, newborn hearing issues and so much more. If you have an interest in helping others with their hearing, this is a can't miss interview.
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Transcript
Introduction and Importance of Audiology
00:00:11
Speaker
Hey folks, you're listening to The Jobs Podcast. I am your host, Tim Hendricks. Your time is valuable. I'm not going to waste it. Let's get right to the interview. Hey folks, thanks for joining me on The Jobs Podcast. Today we have Dr. Sarah. Sarah is a doctor of audiology. She's going to talk to us about all things related to hearing and all that. Sarah, how are you this morning?
00:00:33
Speaker
I'm doing wonderful. Thank you, Tim, for having me. Sure. Thanks for joining
Dr. Sarah's Background and Family
00:00:37
Speaker
me. So let's start off with your early story about where you were born, family, siblings, and then just walk us through your education.
00:00:46
Speaker
Okay, sure. I am the baby of five siblings. I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but I claim Southwest Missouri Springfield as my home because I was only there at the first six weeks of my life and then move moved to Springfield.
00:01:05
Speaker
being the baby of the family was an interesting thing. My siblings would say that I was the spoiled one. I disagree with that, of course, but I had two older brothers, two older sisters, and then myself. So that was kind of a good time, lots of activities, lots of things that we were doing. One thing that was kind of unusual for our family is one of my brothers was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. And prior to my birth, he was already in a wheelchair. And so I grew up
00:01:46
Speaker
with having someone in my home that needed some extra care and attention. And my parents would say that that was one of the best things for our family because it taught all the kids to be empathetic and loving but and be caring to others. So I actually had the opportunity to share a bedroom with my brother across from my parents' bedroom and my parents said that they would lay in bed and hear the two of us kind of playing and talking before they'd get up and and help him out of bed. yeah And i I still remember some of those interactions, but that was a, I would say a really good introduction to the type of person I wanted to be, the type of family I wanted to have. And I think it led into the profession that I met.
00:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, wanting to help other people. yeah right So being the baby, I also have parents that although had some college education, neither one of my parents were able to complete degrees. My mom went to college later in life, like after the kids were grown and all of that and took some classes. My dad, he actually went on scholarship to UCLA. He had a wrestling scholarship
00:03:18
Speaker
However, as we know with sports, he busted his knee and could no longer wrestle, lost that scholarship, and then was no longer in college. So I am what's considered a first-generation a college student because I didn't have parents that could really give me a whole lot of guidance.
00:03:38
Speaker
on that process. However, I had incredible parents that provided a lot of support for me emotionally, financially, you know and just they were wonderful as far as that goes. And I credit them for the successes that I've had.
00:03:56
Speaker
right you were, were you close to, I know you were close to your brother, but were your siblings all close in age where you were kind of a tight knit group or was there a large span of time between siblings where, you know, your older brother was 12 years or 15 years older than you, that kind of a thing.
00:04:14
Speaker
So my oldest brother is 12 years older than I am. Then Danny, who passed away, he was 10 years older. Then Elizabeth is seven years older and Rachel's five years older. So there was a five-year difference between Rachel and I. And and funny story, my dad says that's not true, but I have this recollection of my mom. She said, there's one more baby. We need to have one more baby. And they already knew about my brother having muscular dystrophy. And he says, no, no, no, no, no, we're not, we can't have another baby. And she says, there is one more. And she felt strongly. So she persisted. And I came along. So I tell, I teased my dad that he never wanted me. And he said, that's not true. Right. But yeah, so
00:05:06
Speaker
close-knit, yes, but And we still are close-knit, but you know my brother, I was still young and he was having children. And so I would play with his children almost like siblings or whatnot when they were my my nephews. And then we still have a very close-knit family. Everyone is in the same area. So Thanksgiving, Christmas, 4th of July, we have big family get together. So yes, we're all very close.
Career Path in Audiology
00:05:40
Speaker
Did any of your siblings have a career in audiology or a related field that was maybe an early influence for you that that made you kind of go this direction or no? No, my brother David, he actually went through the army for his training and he is in the medical field, but he did not go through a college education. Then,
00:06:08
Speaker
Danny, of course, he passed away when I was seven. He was 17. Elizabeth, she has gone through her education in psychology, but she did it after I did. And then Rachel is a very successful salon owner. And so she did not go the college route. she's you know So no, there wasn't that interaction.
00:06:37
Speaker
So what what was the catalyst or when did it did it kind of fall into place that this is the career path that you wanted to go down? It's really kind of silly, but so I went to college, my intent was to be a dietician. And I took one class my very first semester and I said, oh no, I cannot right do this. I cannot count calories. I cannot be this obsessed over food. And so I just said, no, I'm not going to do this.
00:07:11
Speaker
Well, I had met a guy we had started dating and he was in a fraternity and I was just talking to him and this and that about, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. And I felt a lot of pressure like this. I thought this was my career path and I just have zero interest. And he says, you know, there's a lot of girls that are in speech-language pathology, and they're in the sororities, but their clinic is right next door to his fraternity house.
00:07:44
Speaker
And he said, I think you need to check that out. I think you would really like that and kind of checks all the boxes for you. So although our relationship did not last long, I do credit him for putting me on the path. So I went into speech language pathology and I enjoyed it until I went on an observation in the public schools and I went, oh no, this is not what I want to do at all.
00:08:14
Speaker
And I liked language, liked the medical aspect of it, but I was really concerned I would get stuck in the public schools, which there's nothing wrong with that. And there's wonderful speech pathologists that that's our thing. They love that. I just didn't want that for myself.
00:08:33
Speaker
But my very last semester of my undergraduate, I had my audiology course, really didn't know much about it up until that point. And I immediately fell in love with the professor, her enthusiasm. um It was just amazing. And so I asked her, she would come in. She was kind of an adjunct or per course.
00:08:56
Speaker
professor and she worked at Children's Hospital in Little Rock. and I said, could I come and observe you? and She's like, of course. and Her name was well is Donna Smiley. and so She has made her way up through the community in audiology. so She's pretty well-known and I'm pretty happy that she was my early mentor that passed me on to or got me involved into audiology. But I went into Children's Hospital in Little Rock and I fell in love with everything. So you would think, well, you didn't want to be with kids in the school, but you want to be with kids in a hospital? That did doesn't necessarily make sense. It's not about the kids, it's about the setting. yes So I
00:09:50
Speaker
I watched her with fitting children with hearing aids, testing kids, testing their hearing, just interacting with them, and I absolutely loved it. She was such a influence, and I really enjoyed that. Interestingly enough, I am not what you would call a pediatric audiologist. That's not my area of interest, but that was definitely what got me involved, in and I said, okay, I'm gonna switch to that.
00:10:20
Speaker
Because I had been going through speech pathology and they're so closely connected, I luckily had quite a bit of foundation courses that I needed. But I knew that I didn't want to you apply for graduate school in speech language pathology, so I looked around and guess what? My hometown had a audiology program. So I was like, all right, let me call them up and see what I can do. I did have to take a couple of classes that I was missing that would just set me up for better success. I did that over the summer. And then in the fall, I started the audiology program, which back then was a master's program. So I've been in the field a few years, but
00:11:09
Speaker
Yes so it was a master's program started that and i went through my master's program. At the end of that you do what's called an externship which is.
00:11:22
Speaker
a 40 hour a week clinical rotation. That placement hired me for my fellowship year. So I stayed in that placement for a year. And then I was able to get my own license and work on my own. How long does that 40 hour a week? I guess that would be your your form of a residency, like what a medical doctor in a hospital would do. Is that equivalent? So back in these days, so we're talking, this was 2000, 2001. Not only, but at that time, we mostly had master's programs. We were starting to see the doctorate programs okay come about. So at that time, the externship was one semester, so essentially 16 weeks. You are in this externship, it's a non-paid experience. You are completely working under
00:12:19
Speaker
Another audiologist licensed audiologist then you graduate then you can apply for a provisional license and you do a clinical fellowship year which was actually only about nine months if I remember correctly it was nine months.
00:12:36
Speaker
And that you're essentially working like an audiologist, but you still have someone to answer to. You still have a supervisor that makes sure you're doing everything appropriately. And that's more of what's the residency. Okay.
00:12:50
Speaker
These days, the students going through an audiology program in the United States, I should say, are required to obtain their doctorate. So and they're all doctorate level at this point. So it does look very different now. And I work at a university where we have that doctorate program. So that's something that I can definitely
Opportunities and Education in Audiology
00:13:17
Speaker
delve into when you're ready. and Do most folks that get into this line of work, is it a private clinic setting that they end up employed at or is it almost always a hospital setting or is there another arena that I'm not aware of?
00:13:32
Speaker
That is the thing I love about audiology is there are so many options you can get. Yes, private practices is a definite one, but there's different types of private practice. You could have a private practice that's just hearing aids. You could have a private practice that's vestibular or balance related disorders. You could have a private practice that does it all. That's just a generalist and they take referrals from physicians, and then they send their reports back to the physicians. You can also have ear, nose, and throat. For 11 years, I worked in an ear, nose, and throat clinic prior to my time at the university. And you're working with ear, nose, and throat physicians. You're working with
00:14:20
Speaker
a variety of patient population there. You're working with speech pathologists. You also have audiologists in hospitals, whether it's regular hospitals, children's hospitals. You can do auditory processing testing, which is a situation where someone has normal hearing, but their brain isn't able to process sounds correctly. So they essentially kind of function like they have a hearing loss. But when you test, raise your hand for the beep.
00:14:48
Speaker
They can do all of that just fine, but it gets complicated when they're in background noise situations or they have multi-step directions that they have to follow. So there's so many different aspects of audiology that I tell people, if you want to be a pediatric audiologist, there's a place for you. if you Oh,
00:15:10
Speaker
veteran hospitals, VA clinics. Those are big. So many of my friends, so many of my previous students are now in the VA system. We have a lot of veterans out there that have hearing loss, unfortunately. So there's just so many. Oh, you can go into the military, and you can be a military audiologist. There's so many things you can do. I've always been curious about the videos that you see on YouTube, or the algorithm sometimes will recommend one where you can see a person that has, and I may pronounce it wrong, is it a cochlear implant? Absolutely, yes. And you'll see them able to hear essentially, maybe for the first time or for the first time in many, many years. Yes.
00:15:54
Speaker
Which is always, you know, I don't care how stoic you are. If you don't get a little choked up watching someone get their hearing back, you have no soul as far. as on it Absolutely. I didn't cry. It was my allergies. It was my allergies. yeah But um and what types of is that a specific clinic that just does those implants? Would that be an ear, nose and throat doctor that does the implant or how does that kind of play out?
00:16:17
Speaker
So typically what you see, so you have an ear, nose and throat physician, but you will have those physicians who are already specialized in their own right, they will go to a higher level of specialization and they're called an otologist.
00:16:32
Speaker
okay So while they've had the training of a general ENT, they are focused on whether it be cochlear implants, balance disorders, that sort of thing, or even a neuro otologist. So how does the ear interact with the brain? Those sort of things. So both of the clinics that I worked at in the ENT world had otologists that did cochlear implants.
00:16:58
Speaker
You can have audiologists that are in a private practice that will do the programming or what we call mapping and after the fact, but yes, the otologist is the one that does the surgery, but a lot of times they'll take the audiologist
Understanding Cochlear Implants
00:17:16
Speaker
in with them as they do that, whether it's to do, here's another area, nerve monitoring to make sure that they don't,
00:17:25
Speaker
damage a nerve that could cause facial paralysis, something along that line. So you can do also have audiologists that go into cranial nerve monitoring during surgeries, sometimes not even related to the ear, just in general, because we have that background and that training. Right. The implants that they put in those cochlear implants, is that What does the voice sound like in the person who has that implant? Is it kind of a robotic sound or what what can you tell me about that? I mean, I don't want to spend the whole time talking about those, but I'm always being curious about what that's actually doing and what it sounds like to the person wearing it.
00:18:08
Speaker
So there are different simulations where people can say can listen and go, oh, that's what a cochlear implant. But keep in mind, you're listening through an audio file, not through a damaged ear that's been surgically altered and all of that. So we don't know exactly. What I can tell you is the technology that was used when I was in school sounded very much like Donald Duck,
00:18:35
Speaker
kind of kind of a slushy sound, robotic slushy sound. And it was something, but it wasn't great. Now the patients do fantastic. They go through a process where they're implanted, they have to heal, and then they're activated. That activation, that's the videos that you're watching where they actually turn it on. So they've had that implant in their in their um
00:19:06
Speaker
temporal lobe in their cochlea but they've had to let their body heal. There's a lot of swelling that occurs that needs to go down so that once that goes down the impedance so of this impulse can work properly. So that initial activation is where they hear for the first time, but there's still a process after that because swelling can continue to decrease and it can continue to improve and the audiologist is able to program or map what's best for that patient.
00:19:40
Speaker
They do go through a series of tests and checks to make sure they can activate all of the electrodes within that cochlear implant. Sometimes they can't. Sometimes the patient gets a little facial tingling. There's different things that can occur, but Overall, the expectation is that they're hearing, again, more at a normal level. So as far as your intensity or decibel level, you hope that they can hear there. But the clarity and the auditory retraining that can occur over time
00:20:18
Speaker
It takes a little bit, they have to relearn how does that S sound, how does that T sound, because they maybe haven't heard it in years. And so it can be a little bit of a process and that is audiologists and speech pathologists both kind of can help them with those processes.
00:20:35
Speaker
It would seem that a recipient that first has this implant put in, it it could be a bit of sensory overload as far as, I mean, is it mentally tiring to just all of a sudden have this input that you either never have had or it's been years and years. Now all of a sudden you have it back again. It's like, good grief. Can you turn that off? Do they have the ability to turn that off temporarily? Absolutely. Okay.
00:20:59
Speaker
So there's an external unit that they can actually completely remove. And so they don't have to, and they do because they have to charge it, they have to you know change batteries or charge it, go through that process. They absolutely can take their cochlear implants off. So you know that is, can that be overwhelming? Yes, but I do want to go back to pre-cochlear implantation.
00:21:26
Speaker
what happens, what we really try to encourage is the patient continues to wear hearing aids. We want to keep auditory stimulation right up into that point of the implantation. ok So I just had a patient who he has been a patient of mine for quite literally over 20 years. And he, bless his heart, I've been for the last 10 years trying to convince him to get a cochlear implant. And he, he's so sweet. And he just was so nervous about it. And he came in and he said, okay,
00:22:07
Speaker
I trust you. I trust your recommendation. I'm ready to do this. So he went and he has a wonderful physician and he's been implanted. I don't know if he's been activated, but I have not spoken to, I should talk to him very soon after activation. So he's supposed to come back and see me and let me know how he's going. But I'm excited to see how he does. And he's one, like I said,
00:22:33
Speaker
I've been talking to him for probably 10 years like your cochlear implant candidate your cochlear implant candidate let's get this going so he finally went that route I am not a cochlear implant audiologist so he is seeing one of my friends over at the hospital They'll get him mapped. And then his other ear has a hearing aid that can communicate with the cochlear implant. And then he'll come back to me if he wants to. I said, you can stay with her. She's great. And you can stay with her and she can work with your cochlear implant and your hearing aid. Or I can do that as well. So we'll see what comes about. I'm just so excited to see how he does with his activation.
00:23:16
Speaker
was I think what he was most nervous about is there is a certain amount of risk with the surgery. okay And one of those can be vestibular or dizziness side effects. And he was very concerned about that. I did see him after his surgery.
00:23:47
Speaker
But before activation, and he was, he looked 15 years younger, he was full of excitement. And he said, I haven't had any dizziness. I'm so happy. And he was really, really nervous about that. So. Well, that's understandable. That's a big step. And yeah, so well, that's one avenue that someone could take that would be a specialization.
Specializations within Audiology
00:24:15
Speaker
When someone is going through the, they've passed all of their general classes in college and their degree program and they're moving into the audiology arena, what types of specializations can you do? Can you name, I don't know, four, or five, six, seven, whatever they are that people might think, oh, I might want to dig into that a little more.
00:24:37
Speaker
Absolutely. So, pediatrics is definitely a specialization. Cochlear implants is a specialization. um Tinnitus, which is the ringing, roaring, buzzing that people are bothered by, a lot of people have tinnitus, and so there's some great new technology that's coming out with that.
00:25:01
Speaker
Some people are just more generalists where they do hearing tests, hearing aids, and they're happy doing that. I have to put a plug in for my area, which is vestibular. So vestibular is, I do fit patients with hearing aids. I do the diagnostic testing and all of that. I love that. But kind of my area where I just really get excited and kind of geek out on is vestibular.
00:25:29
Speaker
I still hesitate to say I'm an expert in vestibular because I know so many people that are way smarter than I am, but I certainly enjoy it. And I would say that I have more knowledge than your general audiologist. so But i I never pass up the opportunity to learn from someone else because we can all learn from each other.
00:25:54
Speaker
Vestibular is balance, dizziness. so Anytime someone says, I'm off balance or I have vertigo, whatever the my ears perk up and I'm like, okay, let's talk about that.
00:26:08
Speaker
What do you find the tinnitus that you mentioned? Is that something that is, I always was under the impression that that's more of a when you're older, there's been years of cumulative damage or something along those lines. Is that not the case? I don't know much about tinnitus other than it's in ringing in the ears and I don't hear too many younger people complain about that. Right. So I try to avoid phrases like due to age. Sure. Right.
00:26:39
Speaker
So, but one thing about as we age, we are exposed to different things through our lifetime. So you have more exposure time. So tinnitus actually can be caused by a variety of things. The longer we live, the more likely we are exposed to certain noises. So if you are in a work situation where you have extreme noise exposures, you've got jackhammers, you've got impacts, you've got grinders, anything like that, fire engines, the sort of sirens, those sort of things, right? All, you know, if you maybe are exposed for a year, that may not, oh, you're okay. But if you continue to expose yourself without protecting your hearing, then
00:27:31
Speaker
15 years down the road, 20 years down the road, you can start to have tinnitus. Some people will say, I went to a concert and I left that concert and I couldn't hear for hours and my ears were ringing.
00:27:47
Speaker
That is a sign that damage was done. And if, hopefully, your tinnitus goes away and your hearing improves, we call that a temporary threshold shift, if it improves and the tinnitus goes away, that's great. But you've still had some damage that has occurred. So what you need to do is make sure you're protecting yourself in future exposures because it has a cumulative effect. Every time you expose yourself to, whether it be a gunshot or a fire firework going off too close to your head, you know this the fire engine, the sirens, that sort of thing, you can have hearing loss
00:28:28
Speaker
And with hearing loss comes tinnitus.
Exploring Tinnitus: Causes and Treatments
00:28:31
Speaker
ok But I want to say you can have tinnitus without hearing loss. You can also have hearing loss without tinnitus. And those people, I would say, you're lucky that you don't have both. But tinnitus can be on its own, but also directly correlated to having hearing loss.
00:28:51
Speaker
So if you have an incident in your youth that I, you know, I'm thinking back, I saw Garth Brooks in concert in the mid nineties and it was a phenomenal concert three hours. I had a huge stack of speakers.
00:29:04
Speaker
off to my right. And my ears rang for probably two or three days, just a tiny bit after that concert. Was it worth it? Yes. But I was also, I don't know, 19, 20 years old. When you're younger, you seem to bounce back from things. Can your body heal that when you're younger to a certain extent? Or is it damage regardless of the age? So they actually have wonderful microscopic pictures of what happens with the hair cells when they've been damaged. And basically what happens is those hair cells just continue to get
00:29:45
Speaker
be over If you could imagine like a field of grass or wheat and wind comes through and it just kind of pushes them or lays them down. And they may lay down for a while if the wind is strong enough and long enough. But over time, they'll kind of bounce back and be able to stand upright again.
00:30:06
Speaker
That kind of happens with our hair cells. The difference is if you really screw up the wheat or the grass, you mow it down and you regrow it. Well, at this point, we're not regenerating our hair cells at this point. So technology, medical research has not been able to develop that for humans yet.
00:30:27
Speaker
There's no hair transplant for your eardrum. Is that what you're talking about? Not yet. Not yet. Well, you know, they're working on all kinds of crazy things, so we'll see. Right, right. I did want to say, though, you know, we're kind of talking about noise and you were asking about the tinnitus. Tinnitus can also be related to ototoxicity, which is a agent that can cause toxicity to those hair cells, to the ear. Odo is just ear. So if someone's gone through chemotherapy or someone's gone through a serious infection and they had IV antibiotics that are known to be
00:31:11
Speaker
ototoxic that can cause a hearing loss and or tinnitus and or vestibular issues because it's all there together and that can be a thing.
00:31:24
Speaker
say a person comes in to see me and I test their hearing, they have tinnitus, but they don't have any hearing loss. I'm going to ask questions, what you know what medications are you on? What have you been exposed to? I hate to say it, but COVID, we're all sick of hearing about COVID, yeah but there were people left with tinnitus after COVID. So that is something that is to be aware of that there's other factors that can cause tinnitus.
00:31:55
Speaker
I would also want people to recognize that if you have tinnitus in only one ear, you really need to have that evaluated. If you have tinnitus at all, have a hearing evaluation done. But if it's in one ear, that's a little different. There may be something more serious going on, and we want to have that evaluated not only by an audiologist, but most likely by an ear, nose, and throat physician as well.
00:32:22
Speaker
Okay. You had mentioned a little bit ago about the tinnitus treatments. What types of things were into 2025 now? What types of treatments do do you see that are that are new or relatively new or something that's coming down the line? Okay.
00:32:42
Speaker
tinnitus has been one of those things where we've made jokes for years and we've said, well, if anybody could figure out how to cure tinnitus, they'd be a millionaire, yeah which is true. But I don't like to use the word cure, but treatment. So there are things that you can do to lessen the effects of tinnitus.
00:33:07
Speaker
Some of them may be related to medication, so you could change your medication, talk to your physician about, do you think a dosage change or changing to a different ah medication may be beneficial? If a patient has too much caffeine in their system, that can be a trigger for some people. Other people, it's not, it's fine. If we're talking about things like certain medications that are life-saving, you kind of have to make those decisions. yeah If we're talking about just in general, we have hearing loss and we have the associated tinnitus. There are things that we can do that are as simple as masking it that sound out, so a lot of patients, they already figured this out on their own.
00:33:58
Speaker
they say, well, when I'm trying to go to sleep, I need to have a fan on or I need to have a noise machine on. And it covers up that tinnitus. That's fantastic. If they say when I'm, you know, up and about and going through my day, I don't notice at all. That's fantastic. That's what we want. But unfortunately, there are some people who that's not the case. If there is hearing loss related to this tinnitus,
00:34:23
Speaker
One of the first steps that we take is to fit those patients with hearing aids because what you're doing with a hearing aid is you are giving them access to the sounds they're missing and essentially masking out and telling your brain, hey, don't pay attention to that really annoying sound. Listen to the sound that you've been missing. And so it is in a way masking the sound, but it's masking the tinnitus with stuff you need to hear anyway to communicate, to be able to function throughout your day. So hearing aids are a treatment option. Beyond that, so say hearing aids alone, amplification alone, do not help.
00:35:08
Speaker
a patient, then we can look into tinnitus masking within the hearing aids or external devices. The process of that essentially to not get too complicated, it's a process of retraining the brain to not pay attention to the tinnitus and focus on other things. And so the audiologist will do a tinnitus evaluation and they will figure out the intensity of the tinnitus as well as approximately what frequency is that tinnitus. And they can go in and program hearing aids or amplification to cover it up just barely so the brain can't hear it, the ears' brain can't hear it, and then through a period of time,
00:36:01
Speaker
It gets where the patient isn't noticing. We can reduce the masking, but they're also not noticing the tinnitus. Is the tinnitus frequency typically quite high? Yes. Okay. When you're talking about hearing loss due to noise exposure, prispecusis, which is the aging process,
00:36:21
Speaker
ototoxicity, those sort of things. There are some disorders that if a patient has a low frequency, so they'll say it's more of like a buzz or a hum, that and tends to be then we find that their hearing loss is in the lower frequencies. That is not noise-induced hearing loss. That's not age-related hearing loss. There's something else going on that we need to look into and see if they're having balance issues, that sort of thing. There are some disorders that we see in the low frequencies. But yes, typically, those high-frequency, the people will say it sounds like the cicadas outside, um or they'll say, I hear crooked semi-ears. That's typically just a high-frequency, noise-induced hearing loss.
00:37:09
Speaker
Is the, you had mentioned a few minutes ago that some folks, they don't really notice it or it doesn't bother them when they're going on with their day. Is it as simple? I mean, I'm sure it can get to the point where it's so severe that you can't ignore that noise, but the early stages, are you, your mind is occupied elsewhere during the day and so you just don't realize that you still hear it. But then when you're laying in bed at night,
00:37:33
Speaker
without a box like I have to sleep with a box fan. It's just what how I've been for 30 years. I like the white noise. But if I'm just laying there with nothing to stimulate my mind, and I'm trying to go to sleep, it's all I can do is focus on the noise. Yeah. So that is very typical for people. But it's it's not just an attention thing. It's also that your box fan what your box fan is providing for you in a quiet bedroom at night is what the ambient noise of your just walking through a room or walking through an office and people are moving and shuffling, that is the basking noise. so And it also is, like you said, an attention. I've got other things to think about, so I'm not going to focus on that tinnitus. And that's if you're in that spot, that's pretty good that it's manageable.
00:38:26
Speaker
some people with the fans they don't like the fans so you can get sound of machines
Education, Career Balance, and Mentorship
00:38:31
Speaker
on amazon at walmart there are ah apps there's a really good app that i like that spy resound it's a.
00:38:42
Speaker
tinnitus masking app that you can just use on your phone and play through your phone. You can set a timer, all of that, but you can set it to be like whale noises or ocean sounds. And so it's not just that white noise. Some people prefer the white noise. I know my husband, he, it's not about the noise. He likes the fan. He just likes to have a fan going. right And so, you know, whatever works for the, for the person, that's great. That's great.
00:39:11
Speaker
the The box fan that came about being in the fire service and sleeping in a bunk room with a bunch of other firemen. Somebody is going to be sawing logs like crazy, so it's to drown out that that noise is usually. But then I realized when I'm at home, I also like to have that noise that I've tried the apps. I don't recommend the rainfalls because after the fourth trip to the bathroom, it's like I gotta find something else to listen. This is too much. Yeah, so.
00:39:38
Speaker
your education looking back you're obviously accomplished you've been through it all what would you do differently if anything in your education or was your journey kinda what brought you to where you are now. Let me elaborate just a little bit on.
00:39:57
Speaker
because my journey looks different than what someone going through audiology, their journey would look now because I went out into the workforce and I worked for a couple of years and then had the opportunity to go back for my doctorate. And at the time I was pretty newly married. I was like, I don't know. We're going to be having kids. I don't know if I want to do this. That's going to take a lot of energy. I'm working. And so I had the opportunity for my employer to pay for my doctorate. And I said, I cannot pass that up. right So when I started my doctorate, I was working.
00:40:42
Speaker
I, it was a distance program. I will say that. And there are still some distance programs, but you're seeing fewer and fewer, but it was a distance program, but it was working. My son was six months old. And by the time I finished my doctorate, my, my daughter was six weeks old. Good grief. And, and it was really.
00:41:05
Speaker
a difficult time in our lives, but I am so happy I did it because now having my doctorate, it opened me up when a job came available at the university that I could be considered for that position. Where had I had my master's level because of accreditation, I would not have been considered or as likely considered for that position. So I'm so thankful I did it.
00:41:37
Speaker
The people that are going through now, they don't have that decision they can't choose a master's in the United States. It must be a doctorate. The decision they have is between a three-year program and four-year program. And that's something for them to consider on how they want to go through that process.
00:41:57
Speaker
but would it have i mean I am happy with the path that I went through, but I didn't really see it as having an option other than not going that path. There are um a little bit more options for ah students now. I feel like my path led me to where I want to be, where I plan to finish my career as an audiologist.
00:42:28
Speaker
I absolutely love being in the university setting. It is Other than the occasional student that is stressed and crying and I just feel so bad for them and I understand, they are so passionate and excited about every little thing that they see. It's all new to them and it helps me to keep that passion with audiology. So I could not be happier with where I am now um in this the setting I'm in.
00:43:03
Speaker
What you just mentioned, I want to jump ahead to one question. When you, since you're working with students on a regular basis, what type of person do you see coming into your program? Or when you start spending time around them, you go, this person has something they, what's that it that someone is going to, you think they're going to do really well in this line of work versus the person to go, I don't know if this is the right fit for you.
00:43:31
Speaker
It's interesting because you can have different personalities and that's okay. That is absolutely okay. We have introverts, we have extroverts, we have anything in between. But the one thing that you really do need to have is some ability to show empathy and compassion towards your patient. That doesn't mean you have to sit and cry with them. That doesn't mean, you know,
00:43:58
Speaker
that you're having those moments, it's, I'm listening to what you are having struggles with, and I'm going to do my best to help you with this. You have to be able to know when to say, you know what? I don't know the answer to this question, but I'm going to find someone who does, or I'm going to refer you to someone who I think can help you. Being able to be humble,
00:44:27
Speaker
and to ah listen to the patient and figure that out is the important. Most of the doctorate programs, you do not have to have an undergraduate degree in communication sciences and disorders, which I did. I've had students come from, gosh, philosophy, business,
00:44:52
Speaker
um Gerontology, which was counseling, which works really, really well. But I had students that thought they were going to go into the dental field, but then switched and went to audiology.
00:45:06
Speaker
One of my students that I was just amazed at how she went through and now has been out of school for 10 years, she was from a business background. She was getting her oil changed at a Jiffy Lube and one of our students was also getting his oil changed and they just struck up a conversation about school.
00:45:29
Speaker
She said, I want to look into this. And then she applied to our program, got in, and she's a fantastic audiologist. And I'm so happy to see her successes as she's gone through her career. It is funny how one conversation, or you know in this case, one episode of a podcast, can transform somebody's life. And they'll dive into a new career.
00:45:50
Speaker
The thing you mentioned a minute ago about being able to say, I don't know the answer, but I'm going to find out for you or I'm going to get you in touch with the person who will know the answer. That is something that I think a lot of people miss. They think it's a sign of weakness or they're not good at their job. If they have to utter the words, I don't know.
00:46:10
Speaker
Absolutely. I can guarantee you that a patient will be much more appreciative if you simply say, you know what, that's a question that I don't know the answer to, but I'm going to find out an answer for you.
00:46:21
Speaker
Absolutely. and My son, my oldest son had a kidney transplant when he was four and a half. And I've dealt with a lot of nurses and doctors. And I much prefer someone who comes in and they're empathetic and they're understanding but they also are down to earth. I don't need an ego when you're talking to me. I need information as best as you can give me and it's okay if you don't know all the answers. We'll figure out know what the right answer is to the question I asked from somebody else. That's great.
00:46:51
Speaker
I cannot stress that enough to our students and you know they'll go through their clinical rotations here in the clinic or their offsite clinical rotations and they get upset if they have if they make a mistake or they can't answer a question. and I'm like, that's why you're here to learn. If you make a mistake and I have to correct you,
00:47:14
Speaker
we're going to move on like it never happened unless it happens repeatedly and I have to continually correct you, that's when it's a problem. and I think that's those situations where if someone isn't willing to listen to the guidance or suggestions from someone else or just to have that self-reflection of, it's okay if I don't know everything, it's so important.
00:47:40
Speaker
yeah Well, that one of my questions I always like to ask is what is your best advice on how to deal with failure? Because even the best of us sometimes on rare occasions will make mistakes. It's part of being a human being. How you respond to that mistake is usually 99% of it. Yes. So what would you advise someone who made a mistake? How can you advise them to move past it or move forward from there? Yeah.
00:48:09
Speaker
I frequently have this conversation with students and I i tell them, I don't look at these situations as mistakes, rather learning opportunities. It's only a mistake if you don't change, if you don't learn from this situation.
00:48:27
Speaker
and ah very rarely do you have an inventor who on the first try invents something and it works perfectly, right? I don't know if that's ever happened, but you can have so many prototypes of this invention. Are those failures? No, those are steps that they took to get to this very beneficial item. And so maybe we're not producing an item, but we are, but you're growing into the professional you want to be and you'll never be completely perfect or without flaw. And that's the good part. We're human. And so I also tell people, you don't want to judge others.
00:49:14
Speaker
if you're not judging yourself and understand you may not know what their situation was in that moment in time. so yeah ah Sometimes you'll have an audiogram, which is how we record a hearing test, and maybe another student forgot to fill in one little thing and they're like, oh, that's terrible. You don't know what was going on. let's Let's not judge that in you've made mistakes, and I don't you know get onto you about that. We just learn from that and move on. So whether it's for ourselves or others, I think it's important to look at them more as learning opportunities rather than mistakes.
00:49:58
Speaker
I can't remember who came up with it, but I've heard the acronym FAIL. It's the first attempt in learning. Oh, yeah. That's ah pretty good. That's one of those things that actually stuck stuck in my head. So I don't know if my dad told me that or just what, but it is a good way to look at it. Now, if you're if you're constantly making those attempts, like you said, that's an issue. But a mistake is not the end of the world. And right if you're listening, you got to realize no matter what you're doing, you're going to make mistakes. So own it.
00:50:27
Speaker
learn from it, and move on. Absolutely. What do you like most about your job? If someone said, tell me the top two things that make you get up and go to work every day, aside from a paycheck, of course. Right. Oh, it's been different for me through the years. So when I was in the ear, nose, and throat clinics, which both were very large,
00:50:54
Speaker
I absolutely loved seeing the patients pre and post-op audiograms to see what those surgeons could do to improve hearing, to be part of that process, to be part of the process of diagnosing someone and they're now one step closer to figuring out what they need to do, how they need to treat that hearing loss.
00:51:21
Speaker
and educating them. That was probably in that time period. Now, I have to say hands down the students. I love working with them. I love seeing the questions that they have. I have to be honest, when I first came to the university, I was terrified that I would lose my clinical skills.
00:51:45
Speaker
Because i'm basically watching them i'm teaching them that they're doing most of the clinical. Experience if i'm gonna lose my skills there could absolutely nothing further from the truth they have such a challenging way to ask questions your mind is always going where they'll say could we try it this way?" And I'm like, I never would have thought of that, but that's a fantastic idea. And I take all of that information so I might use it in a later situation with a different student and translate that knowledge to the other student. I absolutely adore the students. It was an adjustment when I first came to the university because you go through and you get very connected to these students and you see them over a few years, get to know them,
00:52:38
Speaker
as people, as clinicians, as young professionals, and then they leave. And it was hard. My very first white coat ceremony, I cried. I was the speaker for it, and I cried. They were my first class that I saw go all the way through.
00:52:57
Speaker
And it was hard to let them go. Well, now I know just like as a parent, it's exciting to see where they end up. And so I love it. And I love seeing the things that they try, the places that they go, the experiences they have. And it's just fantastic. I just feel like, you know, yes, they have to leave the nest, but my little family just keeps growing and growing and growing. And many of my previous students, since I've been at the university so long, many of my previous students are now precepting my current students. It's extremely rewarding. I do love that aspect
00:53:37
Speaker
I can see that you've invested a lot of time and energy into someone and to see them be successful, you have to be very proud, but there's also a pretty heavy emotional aspect to that.
Modern Hearing Aids and Testing
00:53:49
Speaker
hearing I had a question about hearing aids. I see I've got some acquaintances that use hearing aids. One of them was telling me here recently that he can listen to his TV through Bluetooth on his hearing aids.
00:54:05
Speaker
And so he doesn't have to have the TV cranked up to where the whole house not only hears it but feels it. that Is that pretty common in most hearing aids nowadays? Yes, it's extremely common. You don't have to access that technology if you don't want to, but ah absolutely. So most hearing aids have Bluetooth in them. So aside from the TV, phone calls,
00:54:27
Speaker
on your smartphone if you want to watch or listen to the jobs podcast, you can do that through your hearing aids. If you want to watch a YouTube video or a movie, whatever, you can stream that through your hearing aids just like they were AirPods or something like that. The television is the same way but a little different. You typically have you either have to have a bluetooth connection on the tv or you have advice that you plug into the tv that bluetooth to the hearing aids but your friend can have the television on mute.
00:55:04
Speaker
and then hear it perfectly through the hearing aids so no one else has to hear. Or the television, it can be set for a volume that's comfortable for everyone else, but then they get that little extra boost through the hearing aids. and So yes, Bluetooth is is definitely a thing that is here to stay and has done a wonderful job. So for example,
00:55:27
Speaker
I've got my dad in hearing aids, new hearing aids that when he gets a phone call, he just reaches up and he taps his ear, not even the hearing aid, but his ear. It's called tap control and he can answer his phone that way. So he doesn't have to, if his phone's across the room, he doesn't have to go get his phone. He just taps his ear, which tells the hearing aid through that tactile um tap that he's answering the phone and then he just starts talking and he loves that.
00:56:00
Speaker
Is that something where I have some earbuds that I can, it's a transparency mode where I can hear what's going on in the conversation. But if someone walks up to me and starts talking, then it dims or it lowers the volume of what's being input through the earbuds and I can hear the person. So I don't have to take them out of my ear. right yeah Is that the same kind of thing that you're dealing with there on a much simpler level?
00:56:24
Speaker
um It's a little different because we're talking about phone call. An audiologist can actually set up that connection specifically to how the patient wants it. so Some people, when they answer a phone call, they don't want their microphones to work at all. and Some people still want to be able to hear that ambient noise, but it dims it a little bit. so It's a little bit more specific in the programming and that's the importance of a patient coming back for follow-ups and saying, hey, I noticed this is happening and I don't really care for that or can we do anything about this and your audiologist can program or in some cases teach you how to make those changes within an app on your phone.
00:57:07
Speaker
So you can really dial in the nuance and fine tune it that way. yeah yeah Okay. So when a patient does it through an app on their phone, it's a temporary thing. And we only allow so much adjustment because we don't want people causing more hearing loss. So we want to make sure it's still within a safe range. If a patient needs larger changes, say, unfortunately, they've had a huge change in hearing for whatever reason.
00:57:35
Speaker
They can go back to their audiologist. The audiologist will retest the hearing, reprogram the hearing aids, and reset for the new default of this new hearing loss.
00:57:46
Speaker
Hmm. Are you finding the size and the technology of, you know, a hearing aid now a brand new one? I assume they're just getting smaller and better and faster and everything like that to where eventually you won't be able to see. I think some of them still have a behind the ear deal, but then there's some that just go in the ear canal. Is that a different way of doing the same thing or is one more for more severe hearing loss versus the early stages?
00:58:17
Speaker
So a lot of people assume that if it's in the ear, it's for milder hearing loss. If it's behind the ear, then it's for a greater amount of hearing loss, and that's actually not the case. um So this is where going and having the conversations about your specific hearing loss with an audiologist is so very important because they can explain to you,
00:58:40
Speaker
If you do a hearing aid that is in your ear, that is just nothing's on the outside, it's all within your ear canal, and you have normal hearing in your low frequencies and then just a little mild loss in the high frequencies, often those patients will say, I feel like I'm talking with my head in a barrel. It's called the occlusion effect. We've all heard it at one time or another.
00:59:07
Speaker
If you plug your ears with your fingers and talk, and then you just feel like all your internal noises are magnified, that's the occlusion effect. So actually, so someone who has a milder loss, we will recommend at what's called an open fitting. So a hearing aid that goes behind the ear, a little tiny wire comes down the ear,
00:59:28
Speaker
into the ear canal with a speaker and then we'll place an open dome and what an open dome means is it has a lot of venting holes in it. What that allows is normal natural low frequency sounds to go into the ear like they normally would, unamplified. But then We have the hearing aid to pump in those high frequencies to give us the clarity, the understanding, that improvement in background noise. Why this is important is when you have someone who comes in a mild loss and they say,
01:00:05
Speaker
I do okay one-on-one, but if I'm in a background situation, I really struggle to hear. I can hear, but I can't understand. Well, what's happening is that ambient noise, which is typically more low-frequency sounds is that they can hear just fine, is overwhelming the high-frequency sounds they're already starting to struggle to hear.
01:00:28
Speaker
so With that, if you plug up their ear and they say, I feel like i'm my head's in a barrel, we have to increase the low frequency sounds so that they no longer feel like they're in a barrel. But by increasing the low frequency sounds, we just increased the ambient noise, which was the whole reason they wanted the hearing aids.
01:00:52
Speaker
It is not a thing of behind the ear, in the ear has so much to do with hearing loss. There is a certain amount of truth to that. And historically, the big behind the ear hearing aids, yes, those are those are um when you're talking about profound hearing losses, but there's a huge difference between them. So if I have a patient who comes in and They say, this is the hearing aid I want, and I don't feel that it's appropriate. I will counsel, counsel, counsel, and educate. This is why I don't recommend this. Some audiologists are maybe a little bit firmer than I am, and they would say, I refuse to do that. You can go somewhere else. My approach is
01:01:37
Speaker
I'm going to document this in your chart that I do not recommend this, and we're going to talk about it if it doesn't go well. But if you really want to try, let's give it a go. so I've never had someone who says, oh yeah, this is fabulous. I want to keep this. They always say, okay, you're right. Or they trust that I have their best interest in mind. Especially if they figure out if your pricing is such, I'm like, it doesn't make a difference on pricing. So I'm not making more money off of one versus the other. So they feel more confident that this is actually a recommendation.
01:02:15
Speaker
You know, words it's better for them. Yeah, absolutely. What that parlays well into the question of what changes you've been doing this for a while and in your industry. What changes have you seen or.
01:02:30
Speaker
Is it more of the treatment side or more of the diagnosis side that you've seen the biggest changes and advancements or is it just pretty much across the board, a rising tide races all ships kind of a thing?
01:02:46
Speaker
it's It's both. so There's a lot of things in audiology that they've been around, you know raise your hand for the beep, that sort of thing. They've been around for a long, long time, and that really hasn't changed. However, I like to tell my students when I was in school, I can remember one of my professors talking about this,
01:03:07
Speaker
tests that we would do that had, you'd put a little probe in the ear and you'd play a little sound and then we could measure how the hair cells reacted to that. And it was just mind blowing how that worked. This, we call it autoacoustic emission testing. It is used every day in a clinic now. So if you look at a little over 20 years from my time in school to now,
01:03:37
Speaker
That is a huge change. And otoacoustic emissions are used in newborn hearing screenings, which wasn't a thing when I was in school. To be able to identify a loss in a baby at birth is amazing. It's allowing those kids access to care much sooner.
01:03:57
Speaker
It is a way we can track if someone is going through an ototoxic medication treatment like chemotherapy. We can monitor them and see a hearing loss coming before it's reflected in your typical audiogram. That's just one with otoacoustic emissions. We have tympanograms that are, it checks the eardrum movement. So if someone has fluid in their ear or they're congested, we can do that test. That's been around for a long time, but now,
01:04:27
Speaker
We have different types of tympanograms, multi-frequency tympanometry, um where we can get a little bit more information about what's going on in in the middle ear space with the ossicles, the three smallest bones in the body.
01:04:44
Speaker
things can go wrong with that, and it just gives us more and more information. On the vestibular aspect, because audiology, we're experts in the ear, but the ear does more than hearing, it also does our balance. So on that aspect, when I was in school, our gold standard was what we call a video night, well, actually, electronized dogography. We didn't even have the video goggles yet.
01:05:10
Speaker
And we would do caloric testing, which is putting air or water into the ear, stimulating at different temperatures, and stimulating a patient to get dizzy to see if their vestibular system is functioning. Well, that was only looking at one of our semicircular canals. Now, we can look at all three semicircular canals on both sides, plus the sacule and the utricle, and the nerves. and It's just amazing the technology keeps improving. and it is I'm not a researcher, but it is because of research. so It's important for audiologists to have a respect for research and the importance that that will have and the impact it has on the clinician.
01:05:55
Speaker
yeah You had mentioned something a second ago and I was just a question of curiosity, ah testing a newborn with their hearing. Since you don't have your typical ways to communicate, how how do you typically, or what are some things that you would look for with a newborn to think, I don't know if they're hearing right, how's that work out?
01:06:21
Speaker
Oh, okay. So once the, so the baby's at home and it's passed the newborn. Okay. So it can be really hard. And I'll tell you why. If a baby has a hearing loss in just one ear, the parent may not notice at all.
01:06:36
Speaker
yeah So they may not notice until the child gets older, they start talking on the phone, they notice they're always listening on one side, or if they're turned a certain direction, they're not responding. This is why newborn hearing screenings are so important because we can catch it so much earlier.
01:06:54
Speaker
ah If there were a change in hearing, one of the most common things that happened with kids is they are more susceptible to middle ear pathology, ear infections, okay? So if ah if a child maybe is waking up at night, you notice that they're pulling at their ears a lot, that they're a little crankier. It may be that they don't have a full-blown ear infection, but they have fluid in their middle ear that could develop into an ear infection which then a lot of times you see a fever related that sort of thing the fever is usually what takes people to the pediatrician but the things you can look for is waking up at night
01:07:37
Speaker
pulling on the ears, not responding when they were responding before, maybe not being as startled as they have in the past. You know, so you drop a pan and before that would have scared them. Now they don't even really notice. It could be as simple as it fluid in the ear or there could be something more concerning going on. and Okay.
01:08:04
Speaker
The big question that a lot of folks wonder about is pay when you get into these different types of of jobs.
Audiology Career Insights
01:08:14
Speaker
When someone is first, let's say they've graduated, they've got all their certifications, degrees, everything, and they're headed out into the workforce.
01:08:23
Speaker
I know that if you live in California or New York versus Texas or Oklahoma, there's going to be some variances there, but right is there a general rule of thumb as far as an average starting pay for an audiologist? There is. and If you kind of look on some of the sites that do that tracking,
01:08:45
Speaker
ASHA is the American Speech Language Hearing Association that is over audiology and speech language. They do an annual survey. Not everybody's great about reporting their salary. As you can imagine, some people are like, I don't really think it's any of your business, but it's an important thing to provide so we can keep up to date. ASHA says the median right out of school is around 75,000, but I will tell you,
01:09:15
Speaker
While yes, that's the median and we're talking nationally, some things to consider with that is some of those salaries are four day a week, not five day a week. There's some variability in that. There's school audiologists that may work nine months, not 12 months. So there is that One thing that I love and absolutely is never a problem for me, my students will often tell me what they're offered in that first job. Because they'll ask me, you know, what do you think I should do? I want to run this by you. And they'll tell me their salary.
01:09:56
Speaker
I feel like I am paid appropriately and I don't have a problem with my salary. I'm happy with my salary. Not always, but I do have frequently students that right out of school are getting paid more than I get paid. So I had another student who kind of in a rural area and they were trying to recruit her for a specific setting. And right out of school was able to negotiate for 120,000. So if your median is normally 70, 5,000, 120,000 is really not that.
01:10:32
Speaker
right um So as far as that goes, one of the kind of complaints, criticisms is that audiologists aren't paid as much as other doctoral level programs. I think there's some history there, but I also feel like that is improving because we are now getting ah students coming out of school that are negotiating. They're not going to just take the first job that they get, and there is a shortage of audiologists. So I am thrilled when my almost graduating students are like, I have three job offers and I don't know what to do. And I'm like, that's a good problem to have, guys. Yeah, it is. That's exactly right, especially in today's climate.
01:11:23
Speaker
And it makes me feel good about what I'm doing in the university because I don't think I could live with myself knowing that these guys are going out in the work, or trying to go out in the workforce and can't find a job. Like after spending three to four years in a doctorate program after four years of undergraduate, I couldn't live with myself. And so I love hearing, hey, I make more than you, or I'm in this really cool situation where I can work four days a week and still make good money. I mean, it's fantastic. I love it. Yeah. If you weren't in this line of work that you're in now, was there something when you were younger that you thought, I may want to do that?
Personal Interests and Episode Conclusion
01:12:06
Speaker
Or is there something that you've always kind of had on the side that you think if this ever goes away or I just decide I'm done, that's what I'm going to do?
01:12:16
Speaker
Anyone who knows me could answer this question because I am so vocal about it. I am an animal lover. I love, love, love animals. When I was younger, I really considered becoming a veterinarian. But the thing that changed my mind is I could not see myself having to put animals down. And I know that that's a necessary mercy that some Well, most veterinarians have to do, and I think they're angels for being able to do that. um But I don't know that I could do that. So I would, besides being a veterinarian, I don't know.
01:13:00
Speaker
But I absolutely love animals. I will say there is an animal audiology certificate thatologists can get. Really? Yes. Yes. And although I would love to do that, just in the situation that I'm in, I don't know that I have the time and energy to put into it because it is pretty intense.
01:13:26
Speaker
But you can test hearing on animals. And there are ah university programs that they will run puppy newborn hearing screenings where certain breeds of dogs have are more prone to hearing loss. So Dalmatians are one of them. and so But there's many other breeds. so they'll do Dalmatians are one that, to be registered, they have to have a newborn hearing screening.
01:13:53
Speaker
so That is one area you can use it. There are audiologists that work with the zoos and they can go in and test. There are audiologists that work with police or military canine units, fitting them with hearing protection or testing their hearing service dogs. There is definitely a realm and i I want to so much, but just the time that it takes to go through that, I don't know that I have that ability to do that. so That's fascinating. I had no idea. I just have this mental image of a cheetah with headphones on and I don't know why I do, but right yeah, I didn't even know something like that existed. so See, I just added that to my list of someone. I've got to find someone that does audiology for zoo animals now. That's got to be my next interview.
01:14:45
Speaker
So one of my students, she actually, out of her own time, she went to another university that does the newborn puppy screenings, and she worked with them for a couple of days doing these screenings, and she said it was amazing. She loved it. um But after graduation, she went into the veteran hospital um and And she works there, so I don't think she's pursued that animal. But she said it was amazing, and she just loved it. like Who wouldn't want to cuddle those cute little puppies all day?
01:15:18
Speaker
That would be the fun part, but some of those animals made bite and I don't imagine veterans bite too much. So that's your problem. This was a fascinating, I was looking forward to it just because it was something I was interested in. So I really, uh, I want to thank you, Sarah, for taking the time to talk with me today and explain your whole career and all the ins and outs of it. You're very welcome. Thank you, Tim, for inviting me. You bet.
01:15:45
Speaker
And that wraps up another episode of the jobs podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. Hopefully you found that interesting. As always, I wait until the end of an interview to ask you to like, subscribe and share. I feel it's important that I earn that support from you. Thanks again, and we will see you on the next one.