 | EditorialAdvocacy and Education |
If you are a healthcare professional with a hearing loss, then you have two responsibilities. On the one hand, you are an expert at your discipline, be it nursing, medicine, or pharmacy. On the other hand, you are a potential advocate for both yourself and for others with hearing loss.
You have, for the most obvious reason, chosen healthcare because you enjoy helping people. You diagnose. You treat. You assist. You are a team player. You improve the quality of life for many people, day in and day out. You also improve the quality of life for people by listening. By counseling. By holding your patients' hands. You are a trusted and respected individual in the eyes of a patient.
But when it comes to hearing loss, we may not always live up to our responsibility as an advocate for those not unlike ourselves. In our daily lives, we may hardly run into another individual with a hearing loss. Or so we think. Some 28 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss, that is, one in 100 individuals. Despite the high incidence and prevalence of hearing loss in this nation and countries worldwide, hearing loss continues to go undetected and untreated, social pains associated with hearing loss continue to go unremediated, and the multitude of resources available for individuals with hearing loss seem to have no recipient. What are we to do?
As professionals at the forefront of healthcare, we have at our feet an opportunity to address issues related to hearing loss, be it with a patient, a client, a staff member, a colleague, a student, a faculty member, or a parent. We have the opportunity to educate, to spread the word, so to speak.
When we do not have at our feet the opportunity to advocate with patients or those with whom we work, there are so many ways to advocate directly or indirectly. Get involved with your local hearing loss chapter. Join a national hearing loss association. Subscribe to a hearing loss e-mail discussion listserv. Write letters to your editors. Write letters to your congress women and men. Serve as an officer or board member. Establish a hearing loss support group or club at your school. Go see an open-captioned movie. Learn sign language. The more that you are able to do, the more people you will impact positively.
Here at the Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Losses (AMPHL), we are a group that is of, by, and for healthcare professionals with hearing loss. Although it may appear that there are not that many of us, there are more than you think you know. If it is relevant, everything new thing that you learn, every discovery that you make, every smile you capture or tear you shed, share it. Tell it. Write it. Not just by yourselves or with a small circle of friends, do it for us all. Advocate and educate.
This quarter's issue marks the last issue of a full year of the Journal of the Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Losses' (JAMPHL) existence. In this quarter's issue, we have Dr. Nancy Aarts tell us about assitive devices, assistive listening devices, and telecoils. Bonnie Parnicky, a former audiology student, explains what a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) is and it how it may masquerade as hearing loss and other disabilities. Dr. Danielle Rastetter, Dr. Mike McKee, Stacey Cordwell Carroll, and I talk about cochlear implant candidacy, while providing our own personal perspectives on the decision-making process and the outcomes. Finally, we have interviewed Dr. Linda Medleau, D.V.M., an award-winning professor in small animal dermatology who has Ushers Syndrome (Type 3), which causes both progressive blindness and deafness.
Good autumn!
Samuel R. Atcherson, M.Ed.
JAMPHL Editor-in-Chief
Copyright © 2003 Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Losses. All Rights Reserved.