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, in part two of this podcast Q&A as he speaks with an externship supervisor and the student, now an alum, that she's worked with.
Bob Serianni:
I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what it was like to work with a student who has had a year's worth of clinical experience, who has had pertinent coursework. What was it like for you?
Joanna Smith:
So I have had, since I started taking students, I've had two Salus students and I cannot say enough positive things about them, I really can't. I have several Post-its here prepared for my answers and Becca got her entirely own Post-its. I think one of Becca's greatest strengths was absolutely just a very strong bedside manner right out of the gate. Normally what I like to do with students is, don't worry about evaluating the patient, just go in there and get comfortable being in that environment and being around them. And from day one, Becca was at the bedside asking questions to the patient just to get to know them on a personal level, to make them feel comfortable in the setting, to establish a rapport.
I don't care how much experience you have, how of a therapist you are, if you can't get your patient to trust you and like you, you're not going to maximize outcome efficiency. You just aren't. I would like to think most supervisors would agree with that. So, seeing Becca kind of be able to build those personal relationships with strangers, strangers who were quite sick, I think really laid a really nice foundation for her to have a great experience here. She was also very good at faking confidence until she actually became confident, where she'd come out of a room and I would say, wow, that went great. And then you would just see the sweat start to bead on her forehead. So, I think that was really important too, because I think patients are very good at kind of picking up on if you're feeling uneasy and they don't want to feel uneasy around the provider. Even if you're not feeling necessarily confident in what you're doing, kind of having that demeanor, again, just better outcomes, which Becca had and my other Salus student had as well.
Another really important thing that Becca did was she very much knew what her personal learning style was, which was something I had to have a couple of students before realizing was important. My first student, I didn't really take time to get to know that about her because I incorrectly, my first student, I incorrectly assumed that they would learn the way that I learned. So, I taught the way that I would've liked to be taught. And I learned that not every student learns the way that I do. So, it is helpful, I think, if a student knows their limitations, do they need to see more visual modeling? Do they need to shadow a little bit more or do they want to be thrown in, vice versa? Knowing your personal learning style, I think is definitely a benefit, again, that Becca had.
I think I put a little heart next to this point — Becca had no problem saying I don't know. And that's so important. A lot of students, and I remember being this way too, you want to display the knowledge that you have to your supervisor to impress them, but sometimes in doing that, you kind of miss out on finding where your holes are. So every time a student tells me that they don't know the answer to something, I love it. It's my absolute favorite thing.
And lastly, Becca was very good at self-reflecting without being hyper critical of herself. That kind of goes into, I think, being receptive to criticism or constructive criticism where we expect you to make mistakes and not know things, and it shouldn't by any means be something that you're kind of beating yourself up about, that's just part of the experience. The more comfortable you are with that, I think the faster you acquire these skills. Which again, Becca had.
Bob Serianni:
That's one of the fun things about our profession is that we're always learning, that we're always thrown a curveball from a patient we've never seen this combination of comorbidities before. And that reflection and feedback that removes the self, because it's a skill, it's not about you. I really think that that comes along with any program that you work with to build in the maturity, to say, you know what, you had a lousy session. That doesn't mean you're a bad person. And how could I do better next time?
Becca, what is the next step for you? You're graduated, I'm assuming you're taking a job in the field.
Rebecca Ritsick:
Joanna could not get rid of me after spending the fall semester with me and then the spring semester, she's now going to be my supervisor for my clinical fellowship year. So, I'll be back at Cooper.
Bob Serianni:
I think in closing today, I want to spend a minute and just thank the both of you. I think that you are all the right things that are going on in speech pathology, both from a student transitioning to practice and a supervisor really recognizing the value of being a resource for the SLP community in the Philadelphia area. You both speak to the caliber of student and supervisor our program always strives to work with.
