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The University of Southampton
new2placements

Challenging aspects

Now that you have been on a few placements you may have been faced with a few more challenging aspects. We asked our students to share some of their experiences, and offer useful suggestions.

Amy

...in my first placement, if there was an audiologist that had been doing it for, you know, 30 years, they wouldn't really be told any differently, you couldn't really question them too much... Sometimes you have to say, "I'm really sorry, could you just explain this? Why are you doing that? What's this?" And sometimes if they can't answer you, I guess obviously they feel that they should be able to answer, and that's a little bit awkward if they can't.

Suggestions

Rakesh

I'm also, more than anything, finding out that we get to see the emotional impact on a patient when you find out, oh dear, this patient doesn't actually want hearing aids, what do you do next? We're not taught that in a wet lab session of course, you know, you've just got a dummy in front of you and you talk to it.

Suggestions

Jennifer

I think actually when you get to a department and you don't know anybody and you've just about figured out where the toilets are and where the tea is, and then you sit there thinking, "What should I be doing?" and they'd go and look at me and think I'm not doing anything. I think that's quite tough. And yet what can you do? You don't know where anything is, you've got no experience. You don't want to suddenly volunteer to take on something and then them say, "You shouldn't have been doing that." So actually I think, to settle in, to be given something to do straight away is quite good.

Suggestions

Erin

...people didn't necessarily like having a student with them, because it was inevitable that you were going to overrun. Because when you get more competent at things then you start to cut corners, so all the fully trained audiologists, they know how to do things, without compromising patient care, but they can do things a lot quicker. Whereas I'm sat there doing a hearing test exactly how I have to, because otherwise if you don't then they're like, "Oh you didn't do this properly," and, "Well I know, but look what time it is." So that got quite stressful sometimes.

Suggestions

Jennifer

...there are some audiologists that you're with...they think the right way is the way they do it...So you kind of have to have a little bit of a memory that, you know, "I'm with this person, they like to do it like this."...I've said...I do it the way my supervisor has taught me because at the end of the day I'm going to have an assessment, and my supervisor is going to be in my assessment, and if I don't do it the way my assessor wants, my assessor will still pass me provided my supervisor sits there and says, "Well that's the way we've shown her, that's the correct way of doing it."...Basically I'm doing it the supervisor's way. But I've got a whole load of mental notes that when I'm qualified, and when I'm on my own, I kind of pick up a little bit from what they do and a little bit from this.

Suggestions

Erin

So you don't get that same clinical experience [at university], that confidence of being with patients, that you do when you start placement...I mean it was really hard, when I first started I didn't know - I think I'm quite a confident person anyway, so maybe I found it easier than other people, but to just have to suddenly talk to patients, like real patients, and you think, "Oh my goodness, you've actually got a hearing loss, I don't know what to do," and it's very different.

Suggestions

Sarah

I tend not to introduce myself as a student, and I think most of us take that approach. No doubt they'll see the badge at some point during the appointment...When we send them clinic reports, it's got that we're a student on the bottom of it anyway, so they will know eventually.

Suggestions

Erin

I talked to the head of department and said (...) "Right, this is it, I can't do this anymore," (...). I kind of feel like I have to fight my own battle a little bit of getting my learning done. There's not necessarily someone responsible, making sure that - I mean I have a supervisor, but she's now ill, and then going away for three weeks, so I'm alone for a month, so I have to make sure myself that I get the learning done that I need to.

Suggestions

Amanda

I've said no to a couple of procedures. You have to take, to make the ear mould, you have to put like a little foam stopper into a patient's ear and inject some like soft putty stuff. And there have been a couple of times I've said, "Actually can you do this one? This patient has had surgery," or, "They've got a perforation, I'm not really comfortable doing that." And someone else has done it; they haven't questioned me saying that I don't want to do it.

Suggestions

Erin

..in [City] I got to the point within a few months were I had all my own patients and I had my own lists. So I think that's a real downfall of the audiology placement, is that you spend six months really being trained up...and then you just get like plucked out of there, thrown somewhere else. And I understand that when I came here, for kind of safety reasons, they can't just let you loose on a patient, and take [Clinic's] word, "Oh Erin is fine," or whatever. But I feel like I've been here seven weeks now and I've still not seen any patients on my own...you start to feel like you're being deskilled.

Suggestions
Just ask if you don't understand
Learning new techniques
No one will expect you to get it right straight away
Understanding hearing aid fittings
Clinical report sheets need completing
There is always paperwork...
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