- Hey, guys.
Welcome back to the DrCliffAuD vlog.
This is vlog number 80,
and today I wanna talk about Critical Thinking Skills.
As an audiologist,
critical thinking is something that is hugely important.
Now, I do critical thinking inside of the hearing loss
and hearing treatment world with hearing aids.
And the reason it's so important is because,
I know I talk about best practices a lot.
Best practices are basically like,
they're like procedures.
It's like a checklist.
It's like, you need to do this, you need to do that,
you need to do this, you need to do that.
And it's very like,
okay, I can just do those things and I'm good.
But at the same time,
when you start actually working with patients
and you start realizing that they have like
different perceptions than somebody else,
they might have unique issues
or they might be having a problem,
and you can't just go through a checklist to fix it.
But the importance of critical thinking is very,
very up there in terms of priorities for an audiologist.
You have to be able to critically analyze what's going on
with a patient and then come up with the proper outcome.
So I wanna talk really about,
when a new patient comes into the office,
and the process that I would go through with them
if they already have hearing aids.
And so this happens a lot.
I mean, I get patients from all over the place
who have hearing aids,
they come in 'cause they see my videos,
and they're like, oh,
this guy can solve my problem with my hearing aids,
'cause my hearing aids are not working well.
So the first thing that happens when they come in
is I spend time kind of identifying, okay,
what areas do you feel like you're not doing
as well as you'd like to in,
find out what's important to them,
find out what their wants and needs are.
And then, of course, we have to do testing,
because until I have an understanding
of what their actual measurable hearing loss is,
it's hard for me to speculate on other things.
But I can usually identify pretty quickly
what's actually going on,
but you cannot assume anything
when it comes right down to it.
So one of the aspects that I have to do in the office
or the process that I have to follow in the office is that,
we have to identify where their difficulties are at,
we have to test their hearing,
we have to put their hearing aids
through a detailed cleaning and maintenance.
And then once we're done
with the detail cleaning and maintenance,
if we don't find anything glaringly wrong there,
we have to do test box measures.
Because test box measures will tell us
what the diagnostics are of the hearing aids,
and if they were mechanically meeting
manufacturer specifications.
If they're not meeting manufacturer specifications,
then I can not continue on with my evaluation
with those devices.
We either have to get them repaired
or consider newer technology or new hearing aids basically.
But then, if you go through that test box measure
and you identify, okay, this hearing aid is functioning
or these hearing aids are functioning properly,
and then we get done with the hearing test,
now I have a lot of information
that I can work with so I can kind of critically think
through the entire process.
And once we get to that point
and I reviewed the audiogram with a patient
so they understand their hearing loss better,
and then I can explain what we found with the hearing aids,
what we had to fix, repair, clean,
whatever with the hearing aids,
then the next step is to actually do verification
of the programming of those devices.
Now, to be fair,
they may have not seen their hearing care professional
for years at this point,
so the hearing loss that they had years ago
is potentially different
than the hearing loss that we measured today,
and usually I can see that.
If I hook the hearing aids up to my software,
I can identify what their hearing thresholds were.
I can't usually tell what recognition ability was
or anything like that,
but I can usually tell threshold data.
And then I can basically go in to the software
and reprogram those hearing aids
based on the amount of hearing loss that they have.
But before I do the reprogramming,
I always like to get a measurement,
because what I'm trying to see here is,
okay, with the hearing aids set up
the way that they're currently set up,
are they meeting their prescription
for their hearing loss or not.
And if they're not meeting their prescription
for their hearing loss, how far off are they?
And then, does that add up
in terms of what they're reporting?
And that's the important thing here.
Like you can run someone through all these different tests
and get all this bunch of data in front of you,
but if you can't like critically think
your way through how you would overcome the issues
that they're having,
you're not gonna be a very good audiologist.
And this is something that I take very seriously
when it comes down to being a good audiologist,
is that you can't just follow procedures.
You have to think through the procedure
and think about what you're doing.
And in this particular scenario, you can go any which way.
I mean, maybe reprogramming is the solution.
Maybe you can't fix the problem with reprogramming
of those hearing aids,
maybe you have to have different devices
that can accomplish what that particular patient wants.
Maybe it's something
that's completely unrelated to the devices,
and it's something that's more of a counseling issue,
or maybe it requires an accessory
in order to make hearing devices work better
than they would work on their own.
But the point is that, the reason I love my job is because,
every day is similar, and I'm a very routine individual,
but every day is so completely different,
because you see so many different things.
You get so many different reports of issues,
you get so much good feedback
when you actually go through the process
and you critically think a solution.
And the crazy thing is that sometimes the solution
that I think is the right solution
ends up being the wrong solution,
and then I have to go back to the drawing board and be like,
hmm, okay, I was thinking this,
but that actually didn't work.
So, what's the next step of this, right?
And sometimes it requires reaching out to other colleagues
and be like, hey, like, I've got this tough case
and I just cannot figure it out.
And sometimes you'll get really good feedback
from another professional
who has critically thought out a different way
of approaching the same problem
that results in better success.
I mean, I am not ashamed to admit
that there are times where I'm up against something
and I cannot figure out what the problem is,
but there is always someone out there,
if you haven't realized this yet,
there's always someone who's smarter you out there.
You just have to find those people
and then ask them what they would do on occasions,
and then it makes you better at the same time.
I think this is just the coolest thing about my profession,
other than the fact that like, we're totally changing lives.
I mean,
to take someone from not being able to hear their friends
and family members and all of that,
to being able to communicate relatively effortlessly,
is just extremely rewarding.
And I've had a couple of really, really tough cases.
And I hate to talk about them in the terms of cases,
but I've had some patients come in
here within the last couple of months
that have had some really tough hearing losses to treat,
and we are now on the verge
of having some really major success stories with them.
And it's all because we can take a step back
and critically think our way
through the problem that they're having,
because the traditional treatment methods do not work.
And this is something that audiologists
and probably other professions, of course, do as well,
as when you have these grand round kind of case studies,
where you take one of these really difficult cases
and then you present it to your colleagues
so your colleagues can kind of learn from a tough case
that you had, and vice versa.
This is something I did when I was a student as well.
We had grand rounds,
where different students would present
different tough cases,
and it was very beneficial to learn from those cases.
And I remember that my case that I presented
was a really huge mistake that I made as a student
when treating hearing loss
for someone who had a canal wall down mastoidectomy done,
and ended up making that person throw up in my office.
So, yeah, not everything is sunshine and rainbows
in the office.
But nonetheless,
that's really what I wanted to talk today about,
was this aspect of being able to use critical thinking.
And in often cases,
following best practices is something that should be done,
but following them and being able to use critical thinking
while you're doing it, is what's really going to result
in the best outcome possible.
Now, the other thing I wanna mention
before I wrap up this video is that,
if you guys want me to talk about something specifically,
if you're curious about something,
if you have questions about something,
reach out and let me know.
I do wanna keep these vlogs going,
but I don't wanna keep them going
if you guys are not interested
in the things that I'm talking about.
So one of the best ways
to talk about things you're interested in
is to identify or have you guys tell me
what you're interested in,
and then I can talk about those things.
Otherwise, I mean,
if you guys don't want me to continue on with this vlog,
I absolutely don't to.
You guys just gotta let me know what you want me to do.
That being said,
if you have not yet hit the thumbs up button,
why don't you go ahead and do that right now?
I'll wait.
Very good, thank you.
If you haven't hit the subscribe button,
you can do that right now as well, if you want to.
If you wanna see more of these videos.
But other than that, guys,
I really appreciate you sticking around.
I appreciate you sticking around with me here
for this week's vlog.
I am about to head out of town for this next week,
because it is my anniversary week with my wife.
It is 13 years this year,
and July 26 is our anniversary date.
I'm really looking forward to getting out of town.
We're just going up to Flagstaff.
It's a little bit cooler up there, which will be nice,
but it has been rainy here and cooler here in Phoenix
over this last week, which has also been nice.
But that being said, I'm just rambling on now, guys,
I will see you next week.
(upbeat music)