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- Name: Wendy Flemming
- Position (job title), and where they are working: She works in a Private Practice and Also in home health
She is a Speech and Language Pathologist
- Education (what degrees or certifications they have)-
She has a bachelors of general science for her undergraduate degree. She has a masters in communication science. She has credentials with ASHA, within her state license meaning she has clinical competencies. She is a licensed Speech and language pathologist in the state of Tennessee.
- What inspired you to get into your current field?
What inspired the person I interviewed to get into the current field she works in was the fact that she started off with an undecided major. Going in as a first Gen college student she wasn’t sure what her calling was. She took an intro class that exposed her to speech pathology and audiology and found interest there.
- How did you get to this current job position? What path did you take?
The person I interviewed obtained their current job position by going to four years undergraduate and then graduated. She then took a GRE test. To go further on into her masters program. She then scored what she needed to score to be competitive for the masters program in the state of Mississippi. She got her teacher’s license by taking the NTE (National Teachers Exam) and entered into the school system as a speech and language pathologist. At this time she worked within the school system while she worked towards her Masters degree.
- What are your basic roles and responsibilities?
Speech and language pathology basic roles and responsibilities:
They evaluate speech, language swallowing problems and difficulties an individual may have. They evaluate them and Identify the goals that they need to design to allow the client to be successful when communicating and to be functional again. They create and carry out the plan of care for treatment in order to prescribe the correct exercises and activities that are needed in order to help the client to be functional again. They teach clients and their families strategies and train them and educate them on their situation.
- What is your favorite (or most rewarding) aspect about the job?
She would say the most rewarding part of her job is when she is able (as a team) they are able to help a patient return to functional status whether is be the communication difficulties that they are having and working with the patient, their family and the clinician (her) are able to come together and design goals and reach them in order to help the patient communicate better in their environment. She finds this extremely rewarding because when you watch a patient go from not able to communicate to communicating it’s a beautiful thing to watch.
- What is the most surprising aspect of your career and What is the most challenging aspect of your career?
In her opinion the most surprising aspect is the ever changing insurance world.The ins and outs of benefits. She says this can be very frustrating and challenging because there could be an individual that needs help and either the benefits aren’t there or the benefits could be limited. She thinks in this country it shouldn’t be like this at all. It can be challenging because she knows she can help a certain patient and they could benefit from her skills if they had finances.
- What is a strategy you use to get through the challenging aspects of your career?
She takes a deep breath and remembers that these challenging aspects are things that she can not change. So she has learned to work around these things and figure out how she can help the client in a different way/ thinking outside the box and being creative in order to assist. She wants to help others. She doesn’t do it for herself.
- What is some general advice would you give to someone getting into the health field?
General advice she has for someone getting into the medical field is to enter the field generally because you have a passion for people. Be sure you have a caring heart to help and service others. Don’t just be in it for the money because being in the medical field is going to take a mindset to understand the complexity of an individual’s life.