Observation Hours With a Cold
This weekend consisted of ringing ears with head and neck pain which all turned out to be a lovely sinus infection. Oh and I had a fever! The fact that I had observation hours Monday morning motivated me to get to Med Express for a diagnosis and some antibiotics on Sunday.
After sitting at Wal-Mart for a half hour I got my $57 amoxicillin and ibuprofen (wasn’t happy with the price), but I had to get some relief. Popped those pills was knocked out, I woke up to watch about half of the BET awards and then I was back to sleep.
The next morning was not fun getting up as I was grumpier than usual, anyway I got myself together and headed to the hospital. Fought traffic, parked and found the office in time. The SLP I observed was around my age, so we hit it off. After she packed up her bag with thickeners, cups, spoons, charts and anything else she needed for the day we headed to the main hospital across the street.
Our first stop was an elderly woman who needed a Bedside Swallow Evaluation (BSE). I definitely got to see how social skills and patience trump anything you can learn from a textbook. The patient was able to follow the SLP’s instructions, but she kept asking, “How did I get here?” and “Am I going to die?” She even told us that her husband had left her all while the BSE was being administered. The SLP told her that she was transferred from another hospital and that she was going to be ok.
After the evaluation the SLP entered notes into the system, which was pretty involved. There were a lot of medical terms and abbreviations, but she answered all of my questions. After that she told the patient’s nurse that she modified her diet to thickened liquids only.
The next patient was an older gentleman scheduled for a BSE and Speech and Language Evaluation (SLE). Once the SLP spoke to the nurse it turned out that he did not need the BSE, due a procedure he would undergo later that day. He only needed the SLE, which was great for me to see, as I have never observed an expressive aphasia patient. She used a communication board with him and asked to point to body parts and his surroundings, which he didn’t follow very well. She suggested continued use of the board and further speech therapy.
Throughout the day I saw what it would be like to work in a hospital setting from the patient interaction to working with families, talking to nurses, entering the notes, reviewing charts  and running up and down stairs. The work is pretty involved, but I like the pace and how different each patient can be. And luckily my meds kicked in to curb my sinus infection long enough to get me through.
Looking forward to doing some more observation hours. The NICU would be great to observe next!Â