Audiology Extern Week 2

I. Am. Pooped.

Week 2 of clinic was a busy one. The week consisted of regular clinic on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, training in the nursery for hearing screenings, SIGN CLASS on Wednesday for 2 hours after clinic, and a Symposium all day Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

I was finally trained in the nursery! I am responsible for doing the hearing screenings on the newborns one morning every week. They are so tiny I feel like I'm going to break their necks turning their heads to get to their ears! We test all the babies born the day before. I love it so far. It's a nice way to start the day. The testing itself is pretty simple. We hook up the babies and the computers do the rest of the work. I just hope I don't mess up the paper work. My favorite part of the week was Sign class! I was told about this class the week before and I mentioned to the Audiology director that I was interested in taking it. She hooked me up! K-Mo and I will now be attending Sign class every Wednesday from 4:30-6:30 for FREE! I love it. This is only a beginner class and I've already taken 2 beginner classes in the past, so the material is mostly a review for now. When this class ends, there will be another class offered at the intermediate level, and another one after that at the intermediate 2 level. As the current extern, I am able to take all 3 classes at no charge! I can't wait to improve my signing skills! Since the class is comped for me, I am in charge of helping out a little during class. There is a boy in the class who wears a cochlear implant and Engligh is his second language, so K-Mo and I take turns typing everything that is said during class as he follows along to help him understand. The rest of the week was the Marion Downs Hearing Symposium. The Symposium mostly consisted of topics related to pediatric audiology. I was excited to meet Marion Downs herself, as well as many other well respected individuals in the Audiology world. It was also especially fun to meet the man who is the voice of the recorded NU-6 and BKB-SIN speech tests! Once I found out he was the voice of the recordings, I was immediately reminded of Joey from "Friends" when he thought it would be a cool job to be the voice on the answering machine (Anyone recall this episode?... "You have 2 new messages...").