We are discussing the biggest challenges that are currently holding back the field of speech language pathology
We present the issues with facts and invite you to be part of joining our movement to make things better one conversation at a time.
Let's fix SLP
Hey, Megan, what just happened?
I don't know. Welcome back from your trip, I feel like it's been a whirlwind.
It, it's been something I'm, I'm I, I can't believe what is happening. It makes me kind of sad that it's happening because of the topic. Um, you know, we're all here because we like what we do, I think most of us do. And we all care a lot. And I, it's unfortunate that this is happening, but it's also a great thing.
So what happened?
on?
Well, so we are up to 5000 Instagram followers, and we got that in 18 days. So I think that speaks more to the fact that this is a conversation that SLPs have been having wanting to have for a long time. And we were just the ones to provide the space. So we're really grateful for everybody who's followed along, and asked questions and written in comments. And even if you disagree with us, we really appreciate you being here and being part of the conversation.
There is a Asha board of directors board meeting taking place next Wednesday through Friday. So doctors treasurer, Williams would who's the Member at Large, will be talking about this issue on our behalf. And then we're also asking for everybody to send in a letter to the Board of Directors. There's a 500 word limit. But that letter just helps the board understand what members and non members are feeling about this topic of the CCC. I know a lot of people are feeling like, why aren't we taking legal action? Why are we like doing something dumb like writing letters, that's not actually going to do anything. And just circling back to like, the intention of this is to start out by trying to have the conversation and trying to be open and transparent and really trying to end mass communicate to Asha, how like what the real world experience is like for SLPs right now. Because the people running or people on the board of directors and the people who are the staff at ASHA, largely are not practicing SLP. So they're not as in touch with what's going on in the field right now.
Yeah,
I just want to give a live update. We are like 25 shy of 5500 followers on Instagram that has changed since last night that number. And I also want to give a shout out to our Facebookers because there's about 700 there. And while there are a few people who are on both platforms, I think largely the people following along on Facebook are their own group of people. So that has happened in about five days, which is pretty cool. I just realized I have the wrong outline opens. So talking, I'm gonna go ahead and I was like, Why does the st. Brooke, Brooke was while I was gone? Give me a minute.
All right, then we'll get literally on the same page. But yeah, we're gonna talk about so many things on this episode, I think we both have enough to say that we could fill five hours, but we're going to try to keep it to an hour. And just cram a bunch of thoughts in in ideas. What we're really going to talk about today is competency, and what that means and how we measure that. And when we're talking about the certificate of clinical competency, like, what does that even mean? How are we defining that? And I think we both bring a really unique set of perspectives here today, because you're a professor, you're in that world of academia, you understand it in a way that I don't at all. And I'm somebody who gets really frustrated with that world because I feel like there's a lot of old school mentality. There's a lot of ivory tower that goes on like, you could not pay me to get a PhD like I have zero interest in being a part of that world. Like I'm much more interested in being a business owner because I feel like things move faster. There's more room for innovation and creativity. You can push the envelope a lot more and you're rewarded for that whereas an accurate
Yeah, you're kind of punished for that in a lot of ways. So
when we're living and swimming in a world where the academic culture is so heavily influencing the rules and standards of our profession, and currently working as LPS have pretty much zero power or voice, like we don't even get a seat at the table really anywhere at ASHA, the only way that we can make our voices heard is through these letters to the board of directors. So Janette, let's start by you telling us about your experience as a professor, what are some of the biggest challenges?
Talk to me about like, what goes through your brain when SLPs say that grad school programs don't prepare them for entry level positions. This could be the whole hour.
So I want to clarify to just, if people if this is their first time listening, I am a clinician first, I own my own mobile fees company, I work PRN, both in skilled nursing facilities and at an acute care hospital. I work as a clinician every single week, I have never stopped doing that. It was very important to me when somebody did pay me to get a PhD, by the way, but I was in my 20s, I was single I was living with my mom and my dad. And the invitation came my way. And it seemed stupid to say, no. So I said yes, and it has opened a lot of doors.
But I insisted that my research be clinically relevant. And to make that happen. I had to work all the way through my program. When I was collecting dissertation data between that and working I was doing 70 hours a week in nursing homes. So you know, some people on my committee, I actually we talked about bullying and academia, somebody on my committee said, Why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you working so much? This won't even matter after you graduate? Excuse me? Sure, sir. Shut up. It's absolutely a matter. So just to make that clear. I am. So I feel like sometimes I am the black sheep in academia, I don't. I like to like climb the steps with the ivory tower sometimes and see what it looks like at the top. But I'm definitely not like keeping a room there. So there's that. But my, one of my two areas of specialization is dysphasia. And
I think this is an area where
students are often underprepared. I think that is, for a lot of reasons. It's interesting, because we talk about the competencies that the CIA has laid out for academia to follow. And it's gonna interrupt for people listening, the CEA is the Council for academic accreditation. It's, it's an entity of Asha, and they define all of the standards that grad schools have to meet.
Yes, that's okay. We programs are designed based on the standards, but the standards allow a lot of room for us to interpret those however they want. And one of one of the things that I see is there are still many universities that don't have standalone dysphasia classes. Sometimes it's like a quick eight week course over the summer, sometimes it's split with motor speech, or some other type of disorder. So it's like, again, an eight week week thing. That's a problem, because if you take a look at the standards, dysphasia has one of the highest number of competencies required by the CAA. And it is the class that is often least thought. And also there's not a ton of us that are really in dysphasia every day who are actually experts in the field, and I have so many colleagues who are and who are doing their best, and we're trying to move the needle. But the way academia works is full time faculty teaches first. And if there's no one on on the full time faculty to teach a, you know,
that is an expert. It doesn't mean you're going to bring an expert in. So if there are five faculty and there are 15 classes that have to be taught, everybody takes three and you figure out who's best qualified for which topic. And that's not great. But that's not an astral problem. That's not a CA problem. That's an institutional issue that has to do with money and politics and things that we're not necessarily going to change as part of this movement today. But it's a it's a problem that we just need to put out there. For example, I teach oral rehab to undergrads, do I have any business teaching oral rehab to undergrads? Probably not and you know,what they see right through it, my student reviews are lower right. But my dysphasia man I, I get forced, that's the highest. Yep. So there's that. But one of the problems is that those of us who are really trying to, to do better to,
to make it so students are actually prepared, at least in the areas that we're teaching. We have challenging, rigorous classes. I know, I've heard our colleague ens a Humbert say, when she taught, she used to tell her students, not everyone's gonna get an A, in this class, I do the same thing. Not everyone's gonna get an A in my class, but I'll tell you what you're all going to be prepared, I do an oral competency check at the end of my class. It is very rigorous, but I tell them, You don't know anything today, none of you have had any history in dysphasia, I am going to hold your hand and walk you down a path that might get bumpy at times, you might get frustrated, you might fall, you might not get the A. But at the end of this, you're going to be able to look at a medical chart at a history and physical and read it and make predictions about what you might see, you're going to be able to interpret a modified barium swallow study, you're going to be able to verbally tell me what treatments are and are not appropriate for this case. And you're going to be able to communicate all of that to me professionally. And in layman's terms, like you were talking to the family at the end. That's my oral competency check, shout out to my colleague, Pam Smith, who I kind of modeled it from so you know, that is hard that that makes for a hard class. Let me tell you over the last seven years, how much struggle I have gone through both with students and with colleagues who have asked me to make my class easier because students complain, who have given me really crappy reviews, because I'm too hard.
I, it's frustrating, because students complain when they get out in the field, that they're not prepared. But those of us who are actually trying to prepare them in a way that we know they need to be prepared. We get the most flak, we're not watering things down. We're not making it easier. We're holding them to a standard, we're keeping the bar high. And we're the ones who get crapped on the most. And I asked like, yeah,
do you find that it's the people who are not necessarily interested in getting a job that requires dysphasia knowledge or experience that are the most frustrated with your course
Potentially, but I do remind them that there are students who want to be medical SLPs in my class, and they have to take the child language classes too. So there's that. But also dysphasia is across the lifespan. If you follow the work of almost Dr. Kristin west right now she's she just handed in her dissertation. She's doing pediatric feeding disorders in the schools like her work is amazing. That's coming that's growing, you know, this dysphasia is not an adult only thing. We've got NICUs we've got kids with feeding disorders, it's, it's a lifespan issue. So even if they don't want to be a medical SLP, they're getting NICU to death in my class, I cover it all I bring in the experts for the things I can't teach, but they're getting it all. And I've had some really sad conversations with colleagues is that if I dropped these names, now you would all know these names that teach adjunct at other schools, and go through the same kind of stuff that I have experienced and who have who have considered quitting, because it's low pay, it's not worth the mental stress that it puts on you because we care so much about preparing students. And honestly, honestly, like a $3,300 a semester, like, for 16 credit hours, or a 16 week three credit hour class, like I've done a lot of studying on adjunct pay, you know, you're getting 1011 $1,200 per credit hour, that's before taxes. And you know, that little pay for these experts in our field who are trying to do things better, who get this crap from program directors and chairs and students, it's really not worth it sometimes. And so that's what we experienced. And not everyone is a crappy professor, I think we're all
we're all in this situation where we have to do what the CAA says we have to follow the policies that the university has laid out, like, our department desperately needs a full time pediatric faculty member, and that will come but right now we can't get it approved because we're in a state of you know, fiscal emergency or something like that. Yeah, and how many as
So how many SLP PhDs are there.
I think the last time I looked, there are approximately 4000. But then you have to start whittling that down. So how many of those people are retired? Probably a good half of them. How many of them don't work in the field at all? How many of them only research like they're working at research hospitals or research institutions where they don't teach and they don't practice, they're only in a lab? A lot. And so you take the 1000 or 2000 of us that are left and
expand that over the lifespan, and try to stick us into these programs that that desperately need people like, like me, you can't can't fill every need. It's impossible. Isn't there a requirement? Or there's a certain percentage that have to be PhDs? Yes. So the CIA recognizes the PhD in the EDD as a terminal degree. So I don't actually know what the percentage is. And it might just say that the majority of classes have to be taught by someone with a terminal degree, I don't know. And I'm sorry that I don't know that. It's not something that I've ever been responsible for. So I, but I know there's either a percentage, or there's wording or something that stipulates the PhD has to or the terminal degree, it has to be what's teaching most of the classes. The SL PD is not recognized as a terminal degree. So someone with an SLP D would not be paid more, or wouldn't. I mean, if I was if I was in charge of a hiring committee, and I had three people with master's degrees, and I had someone with an SLP, D, and they all had the same years of experience, and they were all equally qualified for the job. Personally, I might choose the SLP, Ed, because there's some more extra work in academia there. But in terms of what the CA recognizes, as the, as the person who needs to teach the SLP is not included in that.
So okay, so again, from my perspective, as a business owner, I see degrees as products, which probably a lot of people would disagree with.
But
SLPs are paying 10s of 1000s of dollars for these degrees. And from my perspective, there's not an accountability system or a feedback loop that's going on to compare the CAA standards to real life actual job requirements, standards. Yeah. So part of me is always like, why, like, how can we do this better. And again, like that comes back to a, as a business owner, you constantly have to take feedback, and you constantly have to reiterate and fold that feedback into what you're doing. So like, is it possible? Is there a world where there's sort of a pool of really high quality expert educators who have very specialized knowledge in like oral rehab, or AAC, and they have just rock star classes, like, you know, I'm sure they'll still get a mix of reviews, but like, overall very high quality people walk away with competencies.
Could there be a situation where there's like a national pool of those classes that the CA operates, and a university that's struggling to find somebody to teach oral rehab or whatever, could pay a fee to have access to that course for their students. And that fee, like when you pull enough of those fees together, the CA has enough money to pay that person very well and provide a team of people to take in questions and mentor and like individualize support for students? Like, is that a possibility? Because I feel like part of the rip off for students right now is like, It's just luck of the draw. Like if you happen to go to grad school with someone like you, you're gonna get a good dysphasia education, if you happen to go to grad school where they're really struggling to find an adjunct person or they just don't have the human power to like, adequately cover those topics. They're just out of luck. And there's no recourse. There's no way to know that when you apply to a school or accept it.
So like, can we change the model for universities in how these courses are covered?
I think we could. I think that a job like that the department or the university would be potentially paying out a fee like, like a consultant type fee. The problem is, is if there's only three faculty members, or four faculty members, and there's 12 courses to be offered and you'd bring in a consultant for one of those classes, how are you fulfilling the full time job of the person who would have taken the class that the consultant is now teaching.
And also because the CAA does have some language and some rules about how much can be taught online in a residential program. So and this I'm very familiar with, because I've done adjunct in residential programs as
a synchronous professor. So I've taught in New York and Indiana Online to students who are sitting in the classroom. And
there's, there's a problem there that if they're doing things like that, and they're they're bringing in consultants, I'm assuming a course like this would be taught online.
Because I don't think any expert or consultant is going to move somewhere for a 16 week run to teach a class, the CA would also need to be changing their requirements about how much can be taught online, I think a better solution. And there's even problems with this, and I'll give an example, is having a set curriculum that people like me could tap into. So for example, I own a mobile fees company, I have a ton of fees, videos that I can use to teach in my classroom with I do PRN at an acute care center where we administer modified barium swallow studies, but I'm not at liberty to take those videos to use in my classroom. So I don't have access to high quality videos to teach modified barium swallow studies in my course. But as part of competencies, we really should be teaching that. So in the past, my students have had to pay for a product to learn how to do that 25 to 30 hours of training, it's a high quality product, the videos are great, but that's one more cost that we're putting on our students. Thankfully, I work at an amazing university right now. Shout out to to college, we pay for that kind of stuff for our students. So our students are getting that. But I've taught this course at a lot of places. And this is the first place that has covered the cost. So if we were paying into some kind of curriculum that provided those materials for people like me to use to teach, you know, this, this is the textbook, here are the shells of the lectures. Here's a lab for every week. You know, this week in my class, we did the yo swallow protocol. Right now they're working on writing their own oral mech and cranial nerve exams, like examples like that of how to like step by step, this is how you do this, here's the lecture here are the high quality materials, that might be a better option. The problem then is, if you have someone who isn't competent in the area, and doesn't understand what the slides say, it doesn't understand what has never administered the yield, swallow protocol, the class still isn't going to be as good. And I, I several colleagues have told me more than once, you really should turn this into your class into a curriculum and sell it. I share it with friends and colleagues who want to use my course I hand them the whole thing. I think we should be doing that for each other. Because there's not a lot of support in academia. And I think those of us who have high quality stuff could be helping each other out. I have.
Sorry, oh, I was gonna say I have seen a vast difference like a vast, like, there's a large gap between how people respond to my class. And right now I shared it with someone in Hawaii, who is super competent in dysphasia. It's the first class she's ever taught. And this woman is killing it. She's doing great with my materials. She like messages me all the time. Oh, my gosh, this class is amazing. On the flip side, I've I've shared it with someone who also is an amazing clinician maybe hasn't kept up isn't an expert in dysphasia. And those students struggled. I heard from them often that she just wasn't doing well as well with my curriculum. And my suspicion is she was overworked, didn't have time to like, dig into it hasn't kept up as much as I have. And some of the stuff in my curriculum doesn't make sense. So if that makes sense to you, like even if we have a standardized curriculum, it's on the knowledge of the professor
on how that class is going to turn out. Yeah, even if they have I mean, I was gonna say there might be like a hybrid scenario where like, what we're saying is possible, where instead of you like giving away all your stuff that you've worked really hard on for free, like, rewarding people financially. So having a situation where you could apply to contribute your work to the CA standards, and you would be compensated for that.
And there would be some sort of like vetting process or I don't know, but just like
Almost like a profit share, so I teach her meadowridge. And that's what it's like when people watch my courses. medbridge makes a lot of money, but they give their authors every time there's a view and a completion, you get a small percentage of that, for as long as your thing is in their catalogue, they continue to pay you.
By the way, I would like to interject here that Asha does not operate like that. If you are using the actual learning paths, it is like a one time payout of $500. To those professors, if you even get that it could be a PhD student who has who's using it as part of their hours of their Yeah, yeah, PhD, one time payout, they sell it for five years, and you never see another dime. So anyway, I just wanted to interject that. So there's some clarification, there are definitely more ethical CEU companies out there. So if you're looking to purchase something, maybe that to see how they're treating their authors and their educators.
And this is I mean, this is my other issue with academia is it, it's, it's a very abusive system, like we think of it as this sort of equitable place where everybody's helping each other out. And like you're working towards publishing and tenure and whatever, but it's like, the people at the bottom get abused and taken advantage of. And I do think that interjecting like some accountability into that as far as like, making sure people are compensated fairly is important.
I think our friend Meredith, Harold shouts about this a lot to where, right now to get an article. It's like, $50, who's making the money there, that it's part of that abusive system, where if you are at a university that requires publications, you're doing all of that work for free? You're, you know, yes, it's, it's part of your load. But I can tell you, when I was researching, I was, I was working more than 40 hours a week, you know, you get invested in that. And then you submit for publication. And what's your reward, oh, my gosh, I have a publication, it gets to go on my CV. And meanwhile, the journal is selling it at $50 a pop and someone wants access, and the university and the professor and the students in the lab who have volunteered and all of the people who have put the work into producing that outcome. Don't see a dime. Yeah.
All for the sake of being able to say you did it.
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's not. I don't think this system is working. And I think there's a new generation of people in academia that are talking very loudly about this. I also want to circle back. This is kind of on topic, but like, I personally don't think that staffing should dictate how programs deliver quality content. And I personally feel like that's the responsibility of the university to figure out, just like, it's the responsibility of a business owner to figure out staffing, like the product shouldn't suffer. Because
like, like, oh, you know, it's too hard to figure out the staffing matrix. Like, that's not that's not the fault of students. And that's, that's something that universities just need to figure out.
There's so many problems to you know, in here. Well, I'm sitting in Ohio, but I work in Pennsylvania, in Pennsylvania, we have something like between the fully accredited
programs and the programs that are in their probationary period, we have something like 27 or 28 programs, people like me could easily travel between programs. And you know, and I think Penn West is sort of doing that, like three of our universities in Pennsylvania combined. And now there's three speech programs that are technically all the same department. Those professors like my friend, Professor West, is teaching her pediatric dysphasia content now in all three of those universities, right. So they're getting more,
I guess, they're getting more experts to teach their topics. Some of the classes are in person, I don't think she drives to all of the locations. Some of those classes are taught remotely, but they're spreading them out across all three locations. And so that's maybe a better answer that, you know, we have a full time job, where the problem is like there's the state system in Pennsylvania. They could do that if you're in the state system. But for someone like me, I'm at a private institution, we're not connected to any other institution, where would I travel to get those full time hours? So I think there's some answers there across institutions that are connected or in state systems or maybe are somehow collaborating in a private system. There's definitely answers and I agree with you, but for those of us it's just like PRN, you know? Like, some people can survive on PRN and only but some people need a full time job with benefits.
How do you make sure that your full time people have benefits? And so then my question is, is teaching the only value?
That is there? Like, are there other things that we're not offering or tapping into that are valuable? Like, and I guess this is where there's just so many paradigm shifts that could happen. Like if there was a universal curriculum or a universal courses, which, again, that has its own issues, but like, what could faculty be contributing to the training program that's not being done that hasn't even been introduced or thought of that, that is really needed? And I don't think that teaching is the only thing. And I, there's just, there's so many systems in place that have been around for so long that we don't question them. And a lot of these systems are, are the way they are because they work well for the faculty, kind of like how like to be a member of the Board of Directors, that Asha, like you have to be in a faculty position, because that's the only job that's going to allow you to fly off, fly off to these meetings, or go to a Zoom meeting every month, like practicing a selfies don't have the permission from their job or the ability to participate. But we could totally change the system of like, what the Board of Directors looks like, how it votes, who's on it, how they meet. But we don't do that. Instead, we just say, well, practicing clinicians just can't be on the board, because that's the system that we're in. So I think in all of this, there's so many ways to just like if we were to just erase it, like, erase the whiteboard, and just be like, how would we rebuild this? I think we could come up with some really cool ideas. But these I mean, everything is gonna have its problem.
Yeah, like if in the idea of like a practicing clinician being on the board, right, that clinician to go to that three day meeting would have to use paid time off. They're losing money. I mean, I guess they're still getting paid, but they're losing their valuable vacation time that they could be using to take a mental health. They even have PTO. Yeah. Right. And so my suggestion would be we've posted some amazing graphics about all of the money ashes bringing in where the heck is it all going? What if we did it like in academia, we can get a course release. So I've had a course release. And I was doing something else. Instead of teaching a class for an undergraduate class a course release for 16 weeks cost $2,700. That's what they pay an adjunct to teach a 16 week, undergraduate course.
Maybe there's some kind of stipend to the employer, that you know, what is what is the work release cost of us taking, like, what is the financial loss? What would you have to pay a PRN to work? While we fly your clinician out here to be a part of this very important work? I don't know. I think average PRN is like $50 An hour give or take 10 bucks. So $50 an hour times? You're my math girl 50 times an hour. workday is what $450? Did I do that? Right? I don't know, at times three? I don't know. We're looking at it. You do the math $100. Right. It that's a drop in the bucket with these numbers that we have published on our social media pages, that if we had one or two practicing clinicians on the board, and at the, you know, Asha, was paying that stipend to their employer to bring in someone to cover for them. Why not?
So yeah, and I would say to like local governments, some of them are experimenting with the idea of moving away from this representative democracy to like a true populous democracy. So like, there could be a scenario where a board seat quote, is actually all of the members who work in sniffs and another board seat is all of the members who work in schools and like, everybody has open access to watch exactly what happens in these board meetings, not just like, little paragraph summaries of like what they want us to know that they talked about, but we all get to be in the room and then like, we all get to vote on a popular vote, and then whatever is floats up to the top. That's what that board seat is voting on. And so just stuff like that where I'm like, right, maybe, I mean, I'm sure there's issues with that too.
But there are ways to just totally turn things around.
I'm assuming the answer is no. But these are not Open Access Board meetings, right? Like no one can just get one and watch these meetings. Because you and I have been sitting with a fun group of people who have been sitting in on
The interstate compact meetings which is great. They've opened these meetings up for anybody to attend. So if you're interested, they're always on Zoom, be careful, they canceled summit last minute. But we've been rotating for quite a number of months sitting in taking notes monitoring. What I don't like is when they then go behind closed doors, and we're no longer allowed to listen to what we're talking what they're talking about. I think that's crap. But our board and our Why aren't our board of directors meetings, open access for all of us? It's all about a transparency guard, and it will keep them accountable. Okay, so we're writing these letters. Now we want to sit and watch you talk about them. Even if you don't have a say, we want to be able to log in on Zoom, and watch some kind of live stream to hold you accountable. Because then, you know, maybe we answer you with another round of letters. If that's how you need to hear from us. Fine. We'll send another 500 letters done. Yep. Yeah, I mean, you think about like local governments televise their city council meetings all the time. Like that's, that's how you build trust. So you build in transparency to the system. Because I think right now SLPs just they have zero trust in ashes, zero trust and leadership zero idea of what goes on in this like, mysterious place that none of us can quite visualize or picture. But also big daddy, Asha is not the boss of me. He's not the boss of me. Hey,
Asha to live his life. Okay, so that's what I don't understand, too. Is this like gaslighting and misleading behavior? And like all these things, you're operating on my money, I should be able to see like, like local government, my freaking tax dollars at work? Why do I have to give you two Oh, man, I'm getting fired up here. To give you $225. And by the way, my fees are way more because as a professor, I'm in a cig. We track my things. I win the ASHA East award every year. Like, why are you taking my $475 every year and not letting me see what's going on in your meeting? The board of directors that I'm freaking funding, I need to take your breath.
And we've talked about this privately about how like, this is a very old school system.
Amy Salerno, she did a great comment on Instagram about like the history of Asha. And you want to talk about it?
Yeah, so we've talked about that a little bit. So Megan collected all those cool headshots of all the board members. And she's like completely responsible for that post about who has a seat at the table. And that's when we realized, like, we've got PhDs, very few are practicing, you know, if they are they're in private practice. And so we started talking about this issue of why does everyone have a PhD? And I said, without really knowing I make a lot of assumptions. But I will always say, I don't know this, for sure. It's part of my analytical trait, personality trait. I said, I guarantee you this is deeply rooted in patriarchy that like when action started, it was a bunch of men who felt important with PhDs. And they ran the show, and that over the years, why the heck would they get give that up to someone who is less than? And I think because of the nature of our makeup in speech language pathology with 90 something percent women, you know, women have, what's that? 96% Thank you. Women now do have seats at the table. If you look at the pictures, there might even be more women than men. Yeah. But, you know, that probably took time, I would love to see the spread of women versus men over the years since 1925. But Amy shared with us, like in 1925, you had to have a PhD, right? You had to have been doing like, I couldn't even join if you weren't, I couldn't even join Asha, you had to have the PhD to even be allowed in in the old boys club. Right like and then they they started letting the peasants in with like some other name. And and I think that's just how it has continued because even though now they're letting other genders in, God forbid we give up the seat to people who know less than us. And I would I say this all the time. You do not have to be smart to get a PhD. All you have to do is be able to persevere and endure a lot of bullshit. And I am thankful for my degree again. My mentor Michelle bourgeois was amazing. She mentored me she loved on me. She taught me everything she knew, but that is not everyone's experience. There were other people on my committee who made me cry all the time.
And I just think I, you know, I did so much crying. And it was never because of Michelle. But, you know, I just persevered and persevered. And PS that's why Megan and I are not going away. Perseverance and endurance. I'm here for it. Okay. But, you know, just because I have a PhD, that doesn't make me smarter. And I think sometimes that's why I'm uncomfortable with people calling me doctor as like this term of respect. All I did was go to college for 13 years, I don't like what did you do? Like, did you have cancer? Did you like endure some like trauma that I'll never know, like, we all just endure and persevere different things. And I think we have a lot of very smart well qualified clinicians in this field, who would kill it at the table who would do better than me, like I tell making this every day, your words are so much better than mine, for the social media post your or you need to you need to word this response, because I'm definitely going to mess it up.
You know, I bring other things to the table. And I just think excluding people with master's degrees, because they're less perceived as less than is asinine.
Yeah. And I would say you're, that's a very minority view. And I would also say that you put yourself in a position of vulnerability and deceit being seen as less than yourself when you talk like that. And when you share that perspective, and when you treat people like that, when you're in a crowd of your upper level people.
I call it friends. And it's interesting to Megan, because I, I've been paying attention to the pushback, because, you know, we're gonna get pushed back with this movement.
I see a lot of silence.
And I can't judge this from from your colleagues, I see a lot of silence from my colleagues. I'm getting a lot of messages from people with PhDs or people in higher level positions, like on state association boards, or like vendors of well known products, who are just there to educate and aren't permitted to take a public stance on anything. I those messages probably are the ones personally that I have gotten the most, that have been, hey, what you and Megan are doing is super great. It's about time someone spoke up, I'm sorry, I can't publicly join this movement. But I want to encourage you from behind the scenes, I'm getting so many of those. But it has been surprising to me, the people I have not heard from, or the people who have pushed back on us publicly, have mostly been people with PhDs.
Yeah, and like
to share more of my personal story, like I've said before, this is a second career for me. I went back to school later in life. Before that I was a science communication education specialist. So I traveled all over the world. I worked mostly with geoscientists to communicate their research projects, which were always really fascinating. I spent a lot of time in different countries living in different countries. And I spent a lot of time in Antarctica, working with people and spending time with all kinds of diverse people of all walks of life, who had all this different life experience, different languages, different cultures.
And so when I went to grad school, I had had all this life experience. And I could just I felt like, they could smell that on me. And they made it their mission to like, beat that out of me to like beat me down. So that I knew that I wasn't worth anything, and that only the people in academia and only the people who are teaching me actually had any valuable life experience or anything to contribute to the field. And I think this is why we have such a huge diversity issue, like we have almost no diversity in the field. Because if somebody like me, who's a woman who's white, who goes into a grad program, and even though like, I don't feel like I fit in, and I feel like my life experience is problematic for the program, and problematic for my grad school education, like how in the world is anybody who is not email or not white supposed to survive in this environment? And then and then you top that with like this, this thing of like, well, we can't talk openly about any of these issues. Like people have power just stay silent about all of it from racism, classism, homophobia, how we teach how we treat
I mean, how we measure competencies, like none of the issues are being talked about, because there's this sort of agreed upon
contract of silence, and like there's the people who are allowed to say things and people who are not. And yeah, I think, I think that's like the crux, so much of this issue is like, who's allowed to have a voice in this field.
Very few people. I mean, even the silencing amongst amongst each other like it, the the university that I just left, man, the program director did not like me, he was my best friend until he realized I wasn't following his agenda. And I do things differently. And he actively sought to shut me down, he actively shot is actively attempted to shut me up, you know, would would be conniving, and just the like, the things that went on, we're insane. We're supposed to be autonomous in academia, just like speech language pathologists are autonomous, you know, we get to diagnose and treat and do what we want, within reason and within our scope of practice. But we're supposed to have freedom and academia to teach and educate how we want to and it.
You know, he didn't like my agenda. And that was fine. That isn't I want to say to that is not my experience where I'm at now, my dean is fully supportive.
At the end of last year, he and I had a meeting where he did say, you're not going to find censorship here. And if you find problems in your field, that you feel need to be addressed, you're not going to find censorship from us. And I almost cried. Because to hear that, from a colleague, especially a colleague, who's technically my boss, just meant so much that I have, you know, maybe that isn't the case everywhere, I might not be able to sit here and yell at you on this podcast with my opinions. If I was working at a university that didn't want me to speak out, and I am hearing from colleagues who can't sit here and do this, you know, that I'm so lucky that I have the freedom to say what I want. And I'm not being shut down by colleagues that you know, that I'm not worried about losing my job, because I'm speaking out about change. So that's, that's really nice. But like that inter silencing, like you're not on my agenda. So shut the EFF up.
I'll just quit find find yourself a new dysphagia. Professor peace out?
No, yeah, yeah. And it starts as students, because there's that power dynamic, where it's like, if I do speak up, and I do say something, I might not graduate, I might not get this degree. And then it becomes supervisory abuse and bullying. And it's like, if I speak up, they're not going to pass me, I'm not going to get my CS. And then it's, and then it leads into the situation we have now or so many employers are abusing SLPs, because the system is set up to allow that abuse. And the only way that system is going to stop operating that way is if we start changing the rules, which is what we're going to talk about. Before we do that, do we want to talk about student placements, because I think this is an important topic.
And what I'm looking at right now, too, is I want to kind of give a shout out with this. It goes along with what you just said. But it will be a nice transition to what you just asked about. I want to shout out the speech uncensored Podcast, episode 142. With Dr. Jordan Hazelwood, the name of that episode is the one thing how to be wrong the right way. I make all of my students not make them, I assign them. So I guess I am making them because they get a great for it. If they'd like an A, they have to listen to it and then write a personal reflection about what they've learned and kind of do some introspective work about how they learn and how they respond to being wrong. I
it talks a lot about interactions with cis and professors that a lot of times students are afraid to be wrong. And so even if they're not understanding something in a lecture, or they're not understanding something that a supervisor or a clinical instructor or a mentor is telling them quite often they will just shake their head yes, and move along because they're afraid to be wrong, or because of what you said, you know, they've been wrong before or they've spoken up about their opinions, and then they get shut down. Right. And I think that you know, that's why I this is the first class they have with me at the beginning of their program. I start them out with this. And and I encourage them like as you go through this program, if you're confused, if you don't understand something, the likelihood that something the person sitting next to you doesn't understand is pretty high. And so you should speak up ask the questions.
or if you're asked a question and you don't know the answer. I think Dr. Hazelwood recommends like saying something like, I'm not sure, let me hold some space for that. And come back, you know, can we come back to it or there's just a lot of good suggestions there for the dynamic with clinical instructors and professors and, and learning.
There is a fine line. And I think this, this goes for any employment. Sometimes students can be downright like disrespectful, and we never want to disrespect our, our colleagues, our co workers, our superiors, you know that you do have to be careful about not crossing the line where if you have an opinion, or you don't agree with something that your professor is doing, you do want to remain respectful and have a respectful conversation. Yeah, it goes both ways. We can't just demand respect from Yeah, you're yours and not give it back. So if anybody loves a good podcast, I'd go check that one out with Leann. And Dr. Hazelwood, it's great, I can't say enough good things about it. So yeah, let's talk about right, then. And before we do that, I just have one more thought about like, the power dynamics situation, and the problem that you you all face with dealing with feedback that the course is too hard, or whatever.
I think when we look at measuring, learning, and like tests and assessments in grades, the system right now is set up to make sure that the students are learning. But we don't have a lot of great systems in place to make sure that the teacher is teaching other than Did you teach it in a way that worked for me like the feedback forms? And that's where like, I think, of universal competency standards are so important, because then you can measure did the student learn the universal competency competency standards? Right? And did the teacher teach the universal competency standards rather than like, did you like how it was taught? I mean, that's important too. I'm getting like, right jumbled up in my thought process here. But there has to be some a better system for both things to be measured.
And the system is so wild to like, you might not even know this. But we have to, at the end of a program, we sign off on their competency, right, like our program coordinator or program director signs off on their competencies, so they can go on to get license. Well, competency is measured at like 80%, or more. And competency across a program varies wildly, even with each class. So me as the instructor, I need to make sure that my students are competent in what I'm teaching. And that competency standard is 80%. And so I can decide what on my syllabus is measuring competency? Isn't the final? Is it the midterm and the final? Is it a certain assignment. And if if the student doesn't earn 80% or higher on that competency measure, then they have to formally remediate.
And so that is up to the professor to decide how competency is being measured in that course. And as you can imagine, from Professor to Professor to professor, that, that ages, I just flat out say in my class, you earn 80% on everything, or you remediate and I give a class every week, or I give a quiz every week in every class because of spaced retrieval spaced practice helps you learn right.
And so sometimes, you know, the people are getting seven out of 10. They're remediating and, and my remediation is not take it again, because I'm not an idiot. You're taking screenshots, you're, you're just guessing. Come on. I wasn't I used to sleep through my classes. Today, I'm no my remediation is if you have to remediate. You're going to tell me why your answer was wrong. And then you're going to dig in, and you're going to find the right answer. And you're gonna tell me why that answer was right. So I, for competencies sake, to me, that's a better standard, then
take it again and take it again and take it again until you have 80% What are we teaching there? But that's, that's a method that many educators use if you get an 80% or if you get a 70% Do it again till you get an 80 Well, it's easy competency in my classes. Yeah. I mean, what you're doing takes more thought process. You've actually done the work to figure out like some pedagogy and like, how people learn best and like you put thought into it, but
and I'm not saying that people
you know, don't care I think a lot of
time or they don't take that
However, they don't prioritize it. They don't understand that there's research around how people learn.
Or they're new. I mean, I've been teaching since 2009. You know, I am not the professor, sometimes I apologize to my first round of grad students like I or somebody who's listening to us at I had you in neuro it was my first job, like my first full time job. And I, that class was awful. I feel horrible for the students. And I told her, I said, I'm so sorry, you had to adore me. But like, you have no resources. It's just like your teach, without any training without any structure without any anything like we're not taught. You could do it. PhDs aren't taught to teach PhDs are taught to research. A PhD is a research degree. It is not a clinician degree. It is not a teaching degree. There is no class and pedagogy. I'm lucky because I got because I had experience across the lifespan. When I started my doctoral program, they used me for teaching, I taught intro, I loved it. So I got a lot of practice before I had my first full time job. But some people are working in their lab their entire time, they don't have any teaching experience at all. And then they get their first time full time job and boom, you got to 12 load and research in there. Right, like
four classes. So you have to develop those classes. So you're just trying to survive, like I used to set up until four in the morning that first year developing my classes, because no one gives you resources, you're on your own. It's awful.
It's not working for anybody. So when you say you're also responsible for placing students, yes. So what are some of the biggest have just done so across multiple institutions in multiple waves? Okay, so what was your question?
How does it go? Like, what are some of the challenges that you face? Because I think students people are like, Oh, you just, you have placements and you match those placements. And it's easy.
Yeah, it's the hardest job out there. I think I from what I've seen, there appears to be a lot of turnover in our field for people who are holding these positions of externship coordinator. I know the last university that I left the person who replaced me quit within weeks.
You know, it's not an easy job. It's really hard. And I think students especially don't understand what goes into it. So it's, it's nice, and it's a challenge when you let your student go anywhere in the country for their externship placements, which is nice, because you have a broader choice of where students can get their clinical experiences. But it's also hard. So when a student gets a placement, you first have to make sure that the location can take a student. So if they only have PRN, if they have a CF, or if the CF has not had nine months of full time experience at the completion of the CF, they do not qualify to host a student. So that's first things first, the location. So let's say Megan, you're my student, and you want to go to ABC school and XYZ hospital, I have to first start making phone calls, sending an email is useless. I, I almost never am able to make a clinical placement with an email, I have to call. And that means I have to call when that clinician is sitting in the room to answer the phone. How about time zones, I live in Ohio, you live in California, maybe and you want to go to ABC school in California when I'm working at 8am. That's five o'clock your time. So if you check in at eight, that's noon, my time I might be teaching a class. So it's very from the beginning, very careful coordination of when you're making that phone call. If you're leaving messages, you have to get these people to call you back. It is awful. It is awful. Getting people to call you back. That's the first thing. Okay, then you connect Megan I got I got a hold of the special ed coordinator at ABC school. Now she is going to talk to the speech pathologist to see if she even once a student. So more weeks go by I follow up 17 times. Finally I hear okay, in best case scenario, Suzie Q at ABC school will take your student Megan, then I have to get a contract. And that is when lawyers start talking. And when you're going across state lines, it can take months and months and months and you're just like biting your nails because maybe you're doing this a year in advance and you're like six weeks before the placement and there's still no contract and and so some happens it happens quickly, sometimes not. And I have had placements fall through weeks, days before, placements have started. Because the lawyers can't come to terms. Every state has different like indemnity laws and things like that. So the contract is the hardest part. You know, once once you get the phone call and you get the yes, then you need the contract. So that that all makes it very difficult. But then a lot of these places have rules. So some people, most places, now these days, they will not talk to a student. So universities complain, or the students complain because they're not allowed to find their own placement. Well, most places don't want to hear from the students. Because you can imagine, like our university is in a very rural part of Pennsylvania, there's only so many nursing homes, there's one hospital, can you imagine if our entire cohort of 20 all called the same hospital to say, Hey, can you take me as your student, so these coordinators and the speech pathologist only want to talk to the university representative. So That's often why that rule is in place simply because our, our our AR sites have requested, we only want to do this with you. A lot of places will want to interview. So you know, they have one time a year or two times a year where they will interview 20 students and then maybe they're taking two or three students often want to wait to see maybe they go on five interviews, and they want to wait and pick the best. Maybe they'll get more than one offer. That can't happen. As soon as there's an offer, you have to take it and because what if that's the only Yes, you get like you could have, you could have interviewed for five positions, we need to get you one, right we need so you should only be interviewing at places you're willing to go if that's something you have to do. Sometimes students don't understand that. So when you have to place you know, when I took over full time of our I was doing externship coordination and actually clinical coordination for our entire distance program at a former university that I was at, we had 66 students, three cohorts. They all did five rotations all over the country. And I took over that job, April of 2020. I have legitimate like PTSD from it. But you know, if someone said yes, you're going there, at this point, you are going we don't have a choice it so it's so hard because there's so many moving parts. And then you always run the risk of not knowing what kind of clinician you're sending your student to. And that is my biggest fear, and also my biggest beef with my colleagues who don't listen to students. So I always took feedback from my students very, very seriously. So if someone said, Dr. Rodriguez, this isn't a great placement, I'm not learning the things that you taught in class, I'm learning the opposite. You know, I one time somebody called me from her hospital, it was it was like three o'clock or two o'clock, and she was crying. And she's like, doctor about I guess I don't think I'm learning what I'm supposed to learn here. And I said, are you in the building? And she was like, Yes. And I said, Okay, we're gonna hang up the phone, and I want you to call me back when you get home. Yeah. So ultimately, that students stayed and it was a conversation of you're just, you know, you're, you're learning what not to do in your practice. But do you think I ever sent a student to that location again? Absolutely not. And so that, but then
I'll just say that's uncommon, because there's such a shortage of supervisors, that right faculty will just look the other way, because they, they have 5 million phone calls to make, and they just want to get
it done. Yep. And because it's such a hard job, that you know, it. It's just unethical to me, if we have students saying this is not a good placement with students or not three years old, these are grown adults that we're about to hand master's degrees, too. And yes, sometimes students complain, but to me, their feedback is very valuable. And they're the ones in those settings. So again, I've only ever pulled someone from a placement one time and it was bad enough that it had to happen. But you know, you have the conversation, let's debrief about the things that you think you're not learning correctly. Let's, let's talk about how you could have done this differently or how that clinical instructor could have done this differently. And let's get you through it. But then like that feedback is so valuable and because the job is so hard of the clinical externship coordinator, they just you know, it's, they just keep sending students there and it's just
yeah. And it was interesting for me because we've been talking About this, and I think I really had no idea what a mess it was in because my experience was I didn't trust that I would get placed in a good spot because there was there was a lot of favoritism in my program. I was not on the favorite list. So like, I applied to an internship at Madonna rehab hospital, and I'm learning like, that's a unique thing that they do, like, not a lot of facilities have an application program like that. And then like I called the Pine Ridge, First Nation reservation, I was like, do you take students? And they're like, No, we've never done that before. But we're open to it. So I was just wanting that experience on a reservation. But like, I definitely was one of those students that was calling and doing it on my own. Which I know, in hindsight, maybe that was frustrating for them. I mean, or maybe I made it easier for them. I don't know. But like, why isn't there a national
clearing list? Yeah, house. Yeah. And then like, the residency program for doctors is a disaster. But like, at least, there's a system in place.
What what do you think? Or what would you wish for the field as far as a system, I shouldn't be in place to help with this.
I think it's an excellent idea. I was at a university teaching adjunct that has 100 students or more at any given time that needs to be placed in a big urban area, and they were looking at creating something like that locally. I don't know if it ever happened. But I think, you know, like, Pa nursing, I think they all have systems like that, where you're, you know, you pave, the university pays for that. And then the placements are made.
But having that pool of people where we just pay a fee and our students get assigned, would be great. I mean, when I was placing those 66 students all over the country during COVID, boy, would I have liked to paid it, I would have paid into that personally, to get some help. I do think that that's a great idea. The other thing that we bumped into, I've got a local clinician, I've been using her for years, she's become a personal friend. She's an alumni of where I'm teaching now. So that's even cooler. But many years ago, I sent her a student who was not good. And I feel really bad. I didn't know. But you know, she would be making tiktoks in the middle of the day and burnt my friend out so badly that she came back and said, I need a break. I can't take your student next semester that left me three weeks to find a placement. And so sometimes there's crappy students to write like, she is an amazing CI my students like, bring away so much from that placement. But the previous student was just so crappy that we have the CIA's who aren't being paid, who are volunteering their time, who takes students semester after semester after semester, that students have to hold up their end of the bargain to because they're ruining it for everybody else. Yes. No, it's and there's so many parts to this. Yeah.
I think another part, and this is my personal opinion, is that the CAA is accrediting too many universities. And they're accrediting too many universities in the same region, and they don't have anything any safeguards in place to prevent that. And so they're just like taking in the fees approving, approving, approving. They're not looking at how many supervisors are realistically available in this area. And what can actually be supported?
Yeah, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on the other side of the state, man, are they inundated right now, one program was a candidacy program had to close because they couldn't find enough faculty, first of all, um, but then like, I can't imagine, you're that's where I used to teach. That was one of my first full time jobs out in that area.
And we were like one of the i There were a couple programs back then. But now there's, there are so many, and I just can't imagine, I've had to try to find placements for students out there before and I ended up calling alumni that I used to have like, Hey, can you take my student who do you know? So that personal connection is always helpful. The other thing too, is when you send students all over the country, sometimes clinicians will say yes, and this comes back to this. This contract thing, the institution will say no b credited because it is not worth them paying their lawyer to establish a contract for a one time use. So I've bumped into that a lot, too, with people all over the country, especially where there's bottlenecked, like North Carolina, I think is one of those places that were, or it might be South Carolina, I think it's North Carolina, or no, Atlanta, it was in Atlanta, I think there's like three universities all right there, and they can't even accommodate all of those local clinicians. And they straight said to me, are in our institutions are not willing to establish new contracts, because we already have enough students to accommodate in this area. And the only way your student will find a placement is if she drives an hour or more out of the city. Because those institutions just weren't willing to establish contracts for one time use because that cost that institution money to pay that lawyer to negotiate that contract, and I completely get it, it's not fair, especially if that's, you know, my student, that's where her family lived, she was going home delivery, and
she's paying 1000s of dollars for those credit hours, which again, it's like, you can't just because there's limitations for the university doesn't mean that students deserve less, or shake it, what they're paying for
is gonna be a member of that community when she graduates, if she could work PRN at those hospitals or get hired at those nursing homes. That's where she's got. That's why she's graduated. Now, that's where she lives, you know, but it's so frustrating. It's so hard, mad respect to you listening who do it and our list. And so that's, I've gotten some feedback on that to where we've talked about this issue on other podcasts that if people start letting their seats go, it's going to really narrow the pool of people who can take our students. And that's why this all has to happen. It has to happen in a very systematic order. We need the CCC to be modified to be made optional to go away. Or you know, that this, that this restriction that to get the CCC, you have to be supervised by someone with a CCC that has to go away, then we can start letting our C's go, then we want it because we don't want students to suffer even more, please don't think that our our purpose here is to just blow everything up. You know that there is some thought into this. We need to take these steps. But yeah, I've gotten feedback from from people who do this job who have concerns about what we're saying because they know how it's going to affect them as an externship coordinator.
Yeah. And just one more thought on this. You had mentioned, the AOTA has stopped accredited. Because they Yeah, have the same issue. But they're actually doing something but like they're stopping everything.
Yeah. So our, my program that I'm working on now is the first graduate program at our institution, they were actively looking at adding occupational therapy, and they just told us in our faculty meeting, that Aotea a has halted, taking on applicants and that there is such a large applicant pool, and that there are so many people like going through the system or not people but programs going through the system right now that they have, they're halting the process, they're not accepting any more applications. And I believe we were told, or they were told that for us to see any kind of return on investment because it does cost a lot of money to start a new academic program. It would be seven years or more before we could even start the program and start seeing a return on investment with students so good for a OTA like because Asha, just uh, you know, the CAA just takes the money and takes the money and takes the money without any thought of how many there are of us to teach in these programs, again, probably less than 2000. And all of these requirements to get these hours for these students with nowhere to send them.
Yeah, and I think just to interject here, too, like I think a lot of SLPs are like giving up like these people are making these decisions based on money and based on power. And that I think there's some truth to that. And then there's also truth to the fact that the left hand has no idea what the left pinky is doing like these, the system is so inefficient. There's so much miscommunication. There's so much lack of institutional knowledge because these boards turn over all the time that like people are just kind of like going along with like the massive current of Asha and the CAA and like
the people who are on these boards don't have the time I'm or the perspectives like you and I do to just stop and be like this isn't working, how could we do it different. And if they are questioning those things, there's so much pushback from the existing system that that conversation just gets lost. And so I think that's what fix SLP is here for is like, we're just going to be persistent. We're going to be loud, we're going to put language and articulate what the problems are. And eventually, like, if enough people hear that at the right time, there's going to be change, because there just hasn't been that sort of consistent pushback to the existing systems. And so things just carry on as they do. Because the the energy and the time needed to change it isn't going to happen with the way it currently is. So I know we're running out of time we're going over an hour, I think they have like all of this is circling around this idea that this CCC is not evidence based. It does not. It's not tied to any universal competency standards. If someone can afford to pay $225, every year, they can maintain their level of competency, even if they haven't touched a client in 10 years.
We're getting so many messages. I've kept my CCC for the last 10 years as a backup plan or just in case like oh my gosh, look
what there needs to be a different process here.
Yeah. And so that's a thread of the conversation we're having is like, how can we actually have measurable clear evidence based competency standards established by the CAA? How can those be tied into
So just so everybody knows, the next step that we're taking, is to reach out and talk to some people who have experience with changing legislation. So like, how do we introduce bills that would remove language about the CCC from state licensing boards, as well as individual state Medicaid programs, because if we can remove that language, then that frees up SLPs to really decide if they want to pay for the CCC. And then it's just a matter of having conversations with employers. And for people who are listening to this, like, Oh, my God, like you can't just willy nilly, you can't just get rid of this certification that ties us all together. Again, we would say there's no evidence that supports the seeds. So really, it's incredibly unethical to continue to support this certification, because it's doing harm to consumers, first and foremost, who believe that having the certification means something when it really doesn't. And it's doing harm to our field, because it's just kind of a joke at this point. And, and there's no universal standards that we're all held to, and it's hurting individual SLPs because it's a financial burden on top of state licensing fees on top of continuing education, all of these things that we have to continue to maintain in order to have the right to practice. And again, it's it's not actually ensuring competency, so why are we all supporting it? So that's what Jeanette and I are working on.
And I mean, look out into your own SLP community, we all have that SLP who is as dumb as a box or UPS? What are you doing and why are you doing? Why are you swiping that frozen thing on the back of someone's mouth? I don't know. Or, you know, just I am so far out of peds at this point. I can't even give a funny example. But you know, why does why we hold the same state license. And we assumably have both paid for this same certificate but one of us is competent and one one of us is not and here's what I see too, like even putting this back, Megan to our other SLPs pockets podcast. Sometimes those people who aren't competent are also the Yes Men and yes, women who will just take jobs because it's a job and it hurts. It also hurts the rest of us for $20 an hour. Yeah. Yeah, they don't know better to say no, I have to have an instrumental exam to treat pharyngeal dysphasia. No, this workload in my school is too high. No, no, no, no, no. They're like, Sure, I can treat swallowing without an instrumental exam. Let me
Just to end, that's what's hurting the rest of us who are trying to make a difference. And some of that boils. Not always. But some of that boils down to competency. They're just not competent enough to know better, and it's hurting the system. Yeah. And everyone needs to be aware that Asha is like they sent out a survey about clinical specialty certifications. And the best way that I'm getting a read on this is they want to start a program that's pretty much like the CEE provider platform. So I'm an ASHA CE provider, I pay a $900 fee every year, whatever. And then I submit all my courses through Asha. And then I report who completes the CPUs. But Asha isn't looking at the quality of my courses at all at all. Like there's a box that I check that says, Yes, this course has been evaluated for quality of content, or whatever. But they don't, I mean, I could publish any course, as an ASHA CEU. And it would not guarantee quality. And it seems like they're doing the same thing with clinical specialty certifications, where people are going to be able to apply to provide a clinical specialty certification with Asher stamp of approval, and I'm willing to bet there's not going to be a vetting process for quality.
of doing anything with any evidence base. Yeah, so we're all going to get pigeonholed into paying more and more and more and more and more money, and they're going to try to like, be like, Okay, if you don't have this clinical specialty certification, you can't work in this area. And like, yes, we need to have conversations about who can work where, and what competencies they need to demonstrate and how those competencies are demonstrated. But like, that is not the solution. Asha, Clinical Specialty certifications are not the solution. It is going to hurt us. This is this is another podcast, and I have some guests, some guests in mind or a guest in mind that we can invite to have this conversation with us. But no, that is not the answer. It is not. It will ruin us. If you don't have enough money now wait till that starts. Oh, my God.
And I mean, I will continue to say and this is my personal opinion. Why isn't the degree enough? Like, Why can the degree not be good enough? And I know, Oh, yes. Like there's no way we can teach everything that every SLP needs to know in a degree. But I think we can teach enough. And we can get really clear on how we're spending our time and how we're spending students money to teach what they need to know like what they actually need to know and teach it really well. So that the degree is enough for an entry level position. And we're not having to pile on all this extra stuff that we all have to pay for to prove that we're competent. But again, that doesn't dismiss the idea that we shouldn't have specialty, something whether that's a state license, or certification or something. But that's a conversation for another day.
And just just to point out here, too, like, I've heard this a couple times, well, I'm not anti Asha, this is not an anti Asha movement or an anti Asha conversation. Yes, Megan, and I get very frustrated you IBM, you heard that out of my tone of voice today. We're wanting to take what is there and make it better. And this is something that everyone can get behind whether you like Asha or not, because I think we can all agree that the system is not working. Part of the reason it's not working is because we have grown exponentially since 1925. Right? When when the boys, the old boys club and the ivory tower and their little PhDs and they're smoking their cigars like I have this whole picture in my head.
Were there other horse and buggy? I don't know, did they have the bagels? I don't know probably where they shooting bird. Who knows? Anyway, you know, we've come we treat so many more things since since that time, that you know what worked 100 years ago, just doesn't work now. And it's okay to say that we've changed you know, we change our style of clothing. Every decade, we change the type of music we listen to all the time. It can be the same for our field and I've said this before, we need to be allowed to change. We can't be silenced. We have to speak up and that doesn't mean we don't like Asha. It means we need to grow.
And we've joked about we're going to be calling each other if we get in the nursing, living long enough with our lives or our nursing homes.
You know, complaining about all these young people who want to change things. And like, that's just how I like change
how it was back in the 20s when we made all these changes that why do they want a certification now? Yeah. But yeah, I mean, yes, 100 years from now, the things that Megan and I are yelling and screaming about and that all of you are yelling and screaming about won't be relevant anymore. You know, 100 years from now, these are going to be aI conversations, right? Or something even bigger than that, that, you know, we haven't even broached that topic yet. But, you know, like, what were they they should change, and they should be allowed to do it. And that's, that's what we're saying. We might yell it, we'll make it doesn't yell. I might yell it. Again, we'll make some kind of beautiful graphic and post about it. And then I'll yell.
Okay, so the board meeting is next Wednesday through Friday, on Wednesday, October 25, we will be recording a podcast episode with Dr. Treasurer, Williams would like I said, as a member at large, so she will have been in the room while it happened. And she can tell us about the system, how it works, how the meeting went, what we can expect, and like her whole job is to basically communicate to the board the concerns of the members. So she, the three of us will be having a really great conversation. So tune in for that. And anything else, Jeanette?
I don't think so. I mean, no one else wants to hear me yell right now they need a full week hiatus. Before I get any more strong Italian opinions.
I love it. Thank you for your strong opinions. And thank you for being somebody who can hold your own in the academic space, and also provide some inspiration for others to join in the conversation because we need those voices to be talking with us. Even if you disagree like it, it needs to be transparent. It needs to be open. We can't be having this. Like I can't say anything like we can all say we can all talk. We all have a right to freedom of speech. And we all need to be hearing the different experiences because I've learned so much from you about all of the complexities of the academic world. And that's really helped me put some perspective into everything. So thank you all right. All right. Thank you,
