It is June. It is hot. In case you hadn’t noticed. Our written exams are done (not gonna lie, they were a massive slog and at this point, I just want to pass so that I don’t have to resit), but our learning for the year is not.
If you’d asked me two weeks ago about how I felt about starting a new placement just after revising and sitting exams for over a month, I would’ve said I was less than overjoyed. However, this summer placement has-so far-been the best thing I’ve done on the course. There are lots of things that are different to last time: I’m on a paired placement with a peer in my year group, we’re in a hospital setting, it is much closer and easier to get to from home and we’re there three days a week instead of one. Some other things that have been different, but that it would’ve been difficult to know before we started: we are working with children for two weeks and adults for the final two, we have the opportunity to shadow other members of the teams such as dietitians and physios and that the teams/our practice educator (kind of placement supervisor who is an experienced SLT) is basically totally great.
So, maybe a little more info. Bear with me on this one- remember I have to keep all the info confidential, so I won’t tell you the name of the hospital we’re in. What I can say is that during our time on paediatrics, we’ve mainly seen babies who have different levels of and types of difficulties with swallowing. This means we do lots of oral trials- testing different thicknesses of milk to see if the babies can swallow them safely. If they cough or get watery eyes, we thicken up the liquid so it has less chance of going down their windpipe into their lungs (N.B. Yes, speech therapists are in charge of swallowing, too. Not just communication). We have also had the opportunity to see some swallow x-rays (videofluroscopy), which are used if it’s not clear with the oral trials which consistencies are safe for a client. We’ve written reports, made clinical notes, helped with physio sessions and written oral care (keeping your mouth clean and moist) plans for clients who are nil-by-mouth. It has been a massive learning curve.
With the adult team, we’ll be spending time in an outpatient voice clinic, seeing clients who have swallowing needs post-surgery on the wards and…..well, we’re not sure yet. But we do know that the environment is friendly and supportive, and we’ve been given lots of choices to express learning preferences, as well as to say if we’re not comfortable doing something.
I realise that a lot of what I’ve written this time might seem kind of vague, but I hope it gives you an idea of what a clinical placement can be like. I’ve made a mini video with my placement partner Olivia, of us experimenting with different thickeners that are used on the wards. See what you think (in case you were wondering, yes, the coffee was an unappetising as it looked….).
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