For the past two years our company has mentored 3rd year audiology students from the University of South Florida. We have been rewarded in many ways. We feel good about sharing our over 100 years of combined experience with young people who are so eager to be part of our profession. And, we learn from them because they have open minds and fresh perspectives.
I have to admit that I had some reservations about accepting 3rd year students because I did not now what to expect. Now I know that these students have had the necessary coursework before they show up. They are eager to help the attending audiologist.
Universities have a more difficult time placing 3rd year students than they do 4th year. When I ask my peers why they don’t accept 3rd year students I get mixed answers. Some say it would be too much work and others have had one bad experience that turns them off from the concept.
In my opinion Audiologists are missing something great if they don’t consider at least trying a 3rd year audiology student.
Below is a story from one of our 3rd year students.
My love for audiology story
By Carolyn Brennan U.S.F. Student
Hello, my name is Carolyn Brennan. I am currently a 3rd year in the University of South Florida’s graduate Audiology program. My love for audiology began during my Intro to Hearing Science and Disorders class as an undergraduate in the Communications Sciences and Disorder program at the University of South Florida. With every passing semester I grow more and more excited to be a part of this wonderful and diverse field. I enjoy working with all patient populations and have a deep love for working in private practice settings because I feel it allows me to spend more time face to face with patients. Working at Gardner Audiology in my third year of studies has exposed me to many diverse services and their individual methods as clinicians. One of my favorites is the use of telehealth appointments for programming patient’s hearing aids. I feel telehealth will be the wave of future and I am thrilled to be observing one of the first practices to implement telehealth for Audiology in the U.S. In the future, I hope to use some of the methods they have taught me in order to train teach others when it comes to programming hearing aids and effectively using telehealth systems.
