This roundtable is part of an ongoing podcast series about the Speech-Language Pathology program at Salus University.
Thanks for joining us for our podcast series, talking about speech-language pathology graduate school. Join Robert Serianni, MS, CCC-SLP, FNAP, the chair and program director of the department of Speech-Language Pathology at Salus University as he speaks with a recent alum from the class of 2019. Learn more about her time at Salus and the connections she made that helped solidify her career.
To start us off, our alum introduced herself with a bit of background on when she graduated from Salus and what she's doing now:
Jackie Katzev
My name is Jackie [and] I graduated from the Salus SLP graduate program in 2019. I left undergrad at Penn State in 2017. I got accepted to the program and spent two years there; graduated in May of 2019, and I completed my clinical fellowship at a rehab in Chestnut Hill. So I finished that in the midst of COVID, and now I'm just trying to get experience in different facilities. I'm doing PRN in a bunch of different places that are local to me.
Bob Serianni
I'm glad you were able to get your schooling and your CF done before we really had the mayhem of the pandemic. If you can think back a few years, was there a favorite memory of your time at Salus?
Jackie Katzev
My thing was always adults. I loved working with adults always. That never changed. So when we got to do the Sag House, I think it was the Samuel A. Greenstein House, it's an independent living facility, and we got to just sit around and chat with some of the residents there. And every week would be a different topic related to speech-language pathology, like swallowing and voice, and we would make it fun and related to them. It was so much fun, because they were so sweet and so cute. And it was just a really great place to work on your soft skills, like communication and talking to people at their level and just really working on your people skills, because these ladies are a little bit, they're cute, but they're tough. So if you could make them laugh, then I think you were basically good to go. So I loved that. And then I loved my whole adult placement at St. Mary's Outpatient Center. I think it really set the tone and the knowledge for the rest of my clinical fellowship.
Bob Serianni
So you've been out for a while. Have you stayed connected to the campus or to your supervisors?
Jackie Katzev
So I bother Bob, you, quite frequently, and he's the best. He's always available and reachable, despite everything that he's doing, all the 110 tasks on his list. So if I ever have a question, I can always call Bob or text him, whatever, or email. And then I always do talk to my supervisor for my adult externship. Her name is Marian, and she was amazing. And even when I get a complicated case at a facility, and I'm just not really sure where to start with, I can always text her, give her some background, and she'll throw some ideas out there. So she's been a great resource to have.
Bob Serianni
It's a pleasure to keep my clinical hat on and answer questions from not only our current students, but our alumni as well, because I think it allows us to stay connected as professionals, but it also challenges us to make sure that we have the right answers or give the right guidance, not only, again, to our students, but to our alumni. I think it's important to stay connected.
So you've made some career choices. How do you think your time at Salus guided your early career in speech pathology?
Jackie Katzev
I had really great clients at the clinic, and I had really excellent supervisors there. And we could honestly just talk for hours about different, I don't know, patient backgrounds, different procedures they might've had that would have affected their swallowing. And I just always found that to be so interesting. So if anything, the supervisors sparked my interest even more.
And then after having such a great clinical experience in my adult externship, that just solidified like, okay, I really excelled at this. I love it. My supervisors are always here to help me. I know I can always reach out to them. And I've reached out to Dr. Lustig as well, and I think even Randy one time when he was teaching here, and it was just an easy choice.
Bob Serianni
But if I remember correctly, you showed up on our doorstep saying like, "I know I want to work in the adult world." And despite us giving you kids and maybe trying to convince you otherwise, we solidified your love for adults in the medical settings.
Jackie Katzev
Yes. So, I mean, before I came to Salus, obviously you are required as your prerequisite to complete 25 observation hours by ASHA. So when I did that, I didn't really know exactly what was going on. I mean, you're kind of just watching and seeing, and they're explaining it to you a little bit, but you don't have that full understanding. So I thought it was interesting, but then when I put the pieces together and came to Salus and they explained everything even further and it actually made sense, I was like, "Oh, my goodness, it's for me."
Bob Serianni
It's nice when we see our graduate students, sort of like it dawns on them, that this is not only the profession they thought they would love, but really it becomes the profession that they know they're going to love for their whole careers. And I certainly appreciate helping students either reaffirm what they think they're going to do they do or giving them the whole buffet of speech pathology and making sure that even if they have a little nibble of everything, that they go, "No, I knew that's what I wanted and I'm glad I tried it, but maybe that's not for me."
Jackie Katzev
Right. And there were also a lot of clinic experiences, I think, in our first year, especially with dysphasia when we would go to U Penn or whatever, I think all their different hospital campuses and actually shadow an SLP on the floor, on the ICU unit. So that also gives you a taste like, "Can I handle the ICU unit? Do I like that? Do I want to be in a hospital? Is this too fast-paced for me?" So that gives you a taste as well.
Bob Serianni
So I'm just wondering, now that you've graduated, you've gotten some time between Salus and now under your belt, were there any surprises when you came out into the field that you thought, "Huh, I'm glad I had that experience or why didn't I have that experience to make this easier or better?"
Jackie Katzev
Well, I think the knowledge was definitely there. When I came into my clinical fellowship at a nursing home, the knowledge was there. I knew what exercises to do with each patient, given their diagnosis. I knew where to go from there. But obviously you're in a classroom during your time at Salus. You're in graduate school. So they're not teaching you about how to run your day to keep up with productivity, but that's something that you learn on the job. And I think that the professors were pretty clear about that, that you also, there are some things that you just learn on the job, like how to manage your day.
Bob Serianni
So before we wrap up, I'm just wondering if you have any advice for students that have decided to come to the program or might be listening to this thinking, "Is graduate school for me?" What would be one piece of advice you want our listeners to have?
Jackie Katzev
I think Salus is a very open community and the professors are really excellent. So talk to all of your professors, all of them. Learn everything about them, know their path and how they got to where they are. Just talk to them about every interest you have, whether it's kids or adults or maybe voice, you want to work with transgender people, you want to work with swallowing. Just learn about everything. I think they will open the doors for you. I think that will certainly help you make your decision and, I don't know, just give you some more information.
