BFFs

Yesterday in Motor Speech Disorders we had a guest lecturer in class.  She is a physical therapist who works in one of the zillions of clinics the hospital has, and ends up working with some of the patients the Voice Center also sees.  They go to her to get myofascial release therapy, which essentially ensures that each of the multitude of neck and laryngeal muscles are in place and not too tense.  If all of those muscles are not functioning properly, then the voice cannot function properly, either, so it's a pretty useful and necessary step for some patients who have a myriad of voice issues.

I found her presentation pretty interesting, first because it was not related to anything we had just talked about for 2.5 hours in the class before, second because it actually helped me brush up on some stuff for my upcoming anatomy test, and third because it was really great to see how two related but separate professions can work together to achieve better results for our patients.  In my clinic placement this semester, OTs, PTs, and SLPs all collaborate to ensure that each patient is being taken care of and every need that we serve is being met, and that the therapies are not too redundant or counterproductive.  It's a pretty awesome collaborative setting, and I think it does the patients a lot of good.  But one of the things I really like about it is seeing how healthcare should be enacted, with professionals from different fields working together for the good of each individual patient.  This lecture the other day had the same effect, with two different types of professionals learning from each other to achieve the best care possible.  I think it's really terrific when we can learn from each other, not always reinvent the wheel, and not be so stingy with our knowledge base.  There is no place in the world of taking care of people for competition, because that doesn't do anyone any good.  I like hearing about therapy from someone else's perspective, and I hope to see that kind of collaboration in the future.  It's definitely an environment I want to find when I start looking for a job when I graduate.  Basically, SLPs and PTs and OTs, although I think we're definitely different kinds of people personality-wise, should become BFFs in the world of collaborative healthcare.

So, warm fuzzy feelings for SLPs and PTs all over the place!  And thanks to her terrific diagrams, I can go back to studying the sternocleidomastoid and the diaphragm and ace this anatomy business in the morning.  After I stretch out my laryngeal muscles with my fancy new techniques!.