AMPHL - Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Losses

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions related to physical therapists with hearing loss, please contact: Diane Jennings at respiratorytherapy@amphl.org.

Table of Contents

Respiratory Therapy Resources

Is Respiratory Therapy for me?
So you want to be a Respiratory Therapist? Things to consider
As a student or potential employee, when and how to disclose your hearing loss
How to select an education institution, or employment environment for you
Assistive devices, friend or foe?

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1. Is Respiratory Therapy for me?

Respiratory Therapy is a career in which one is trained in caring for patients with respiratory ailments or diseases. We, as respiratory therapists at the AMPHL, want to provide you with information and resources that will help you if you wish to pursue a career in respiratory therapy, or maintain employment, as a respiratory therapist should you lose your hearing during your career. Everyone is unique, comes from different backgrounds, cultures, and personal histories. The resources given here have been created with various backgrounds in mind. One individual’s experiences may differ vastly from another’s. Our hope is to bring these experiences together so that we may all grow in our understanding and coping with our profession and its demands.

Because we are talking about hearing loss it is important to remember that each persons loss can be different. There are some people who have high frequency loss, while others can’t hear low sounds. Some people can understand speech perfectly while others rely on lip reading or assistance with hearing devices. Professionals and students here at the AMPHL may use a variety of means to accommodate their hearing losses. Whatever the means, we at the AMPHL are here to help you as best we can.

We hope the information provided will be useful to you. We want to be honest and share with you our struggles and our victories in dealing with our hearing loss and our chosen career.

2. So you want to be a Respiratory Therapist? Things to consider

Respiratory Therapy has expanded greatly over the years. What once was considered a hospital job is now an open door to numerous opportunities in various settings. You can now find Respiratory Therapists in hospitals, clinics, doctor’s offices, home health facilities, patient homes, rehabilitation facilities, nursing homes, educational institutions, sales and even the political arena. One of the main areas a respiratory therapist is utilized is in the assessment of patient lung sounds (breath sounds and some heart sounds). This function is necessary every day, multiple times a day. We have branched out from merely administering respiratory medications, into other areas including cardiac monitoring, ventilator management (life support), diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases, rehabilitation, and education of patients and the general public. We want to help you as best we can to make your career in Respiratory Therapy the most fulfilling possible.

As the population gets older, more and more patients will need treatment from Respiratory Therapists. The demands for our services are increasing every day. Our unique vantage point makes us a valuable asset to any health care setting.

3. As a student or potential employee, when and how to disclose your hearing loss.

We, at AMPHL, have individually decided if, when and how to disclose our disability to others. Some feel honesty is the best policy and are forthright about their hearing loss when applying for schools or jobs. Others have found that this may have lead to discrimination, even though legally such disclosure should have no bearing on either acceptance into a school, or obtaining employment. Discrimination still remains regardless of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is your choice as to if, when, and how you want your hearing loss revealed. You do not legally have to reveal anything about your disability when applying for school or a job.

We all want to be judged by our merits and abilities, not deemed a safety concern, which is a common misconception. If you chose to reveal your hearing loss during your application process, you may want to be prepared to answer questions regarding your plans for accommodations.
Common questions might be:

How are heart and lung sounds going to be assessed?
How will you communicate with others wearing an oxygen mask, leaving you unable to lip read?
How you will work with a paging system?
How will you handle telephone usage?
How will you hear and respond in emergency “code” situations?
How will you effectively communicate with patients and staff on a day-to-day basis?

For all these listed above, what accommodations are you prepared to make? What will you expect for accommodations from your school or employer? Respiratory Therapists have successfully managed all these situations, sometimes using creative accommodations.
Respiratory Therapists have acted for pagers that vibrate as well as sound an alarm when paged, thus allowing them to feel as well as hear when being paged. They have also used t-coil enabled phones for use with their hearing aids. There are simple things such as arranging yourself in the room’s space to better hear or read lips of both employees, and patients. Many therapists use amplified stethoscopes to ascertain breath and heart sounds. With new tools being utilized every day in the medical field, more and more options for help are surfacing for those who are hear of hearing. The forums here on this web site are designed with this in mind. We can all learn from each other as we share new ways to assist us in the field of our choice.

4. How to select an education institution or employment environment for you.

When selecting a school, the more time and effort you put into your search, the better you will understand the pros and cons of each school. There are several considerations as you search for an appropriate school for your needs. School size might influence you. A classroom with 9 students might be better than a class of 50 for your hearing loss. Do you think you will need more one- on-one time with your teacher? If so, will that be possible in a large class? Or, does the larger class make you more comfortable, allowing you to ask students for help in deciphering all the subjects covered? Location, and the types of classes officered might mean a great deal to you. Are all classes given in the lecture form, or are some available by correspondence or video? You really have to choose a school that fits you. Most schools will assist in trying to make your learning experience as fulfilling as possible. Some schools may allow you to record your lectures for review later. Others may provide a CART reporter (one that types lecture notes verbatim in real time for you). There are things you can do, such as asking people to get your attention and turn toward you when they are speaking, selecting the appropriate seat in the classroom setting so you can hear or lip read better. Together, your goal of an effective educational experience in the school setting can be reached.

You may also want to utilize associations already in place to help you find a school and gain acceptance. Contacting the local State Vocational Rehabilitation Office could help you meet your education goals. Individual school resource officers can be helpful in meeting your needs. The point is, there are many ways to effectively place you in the right school, but you have to be willing to work at finding what meets your needs.

When interviewing with a school or employer, prepare in advance. You must be ready for questions about your hearing loss if you have disclosed it, expectations from the school or employer, and accommodations that are expected from them. You could take this as an opportunity to educate them about hearing loss, and what it is and isn’t. This may be a new arena for this institution to handle, and your knowledge of your options will only make them feel more confident that you can and will succeed.

Regardless of pursuing school or employment, education is going to be the key. The more you know, the more you can share, and the better off all people will be for it.

5. Assistive devices, friend or foe?

With the expanse of technology, comes advancement for people with hearing loss as well. There are so many devices and options out there that help with hearing loss; it will be impossible to discuss them all here. So we will cover the ones most used in dealing with your function as a Respiratory Therapist.

Hearing aids: Sometimes the simplest things are the ones that make the most difference. For many people the addition of hearing aids helps them so much that they can function in the Respiratory Therapy field with no other accommodations. For others, hearing aids add more issues than they solve. Everything from how to hear pages, to using a stethoscope can be effected by the types and location of hearing aids and cochlear implants.
Stethoscopes: There are wide ranges of stethoscopes for use by hearing impaired people. Some are simple amplification scopes, while others are more complex. There are specially designed stethoscopes, which work with hearing aids in the ear, behind the ear, and even cochlear implants. Recently there was the development of a PDA that can be used to assess lung and heart sounds. On the horizon is talk of a blue tooth enabled stethoscope, which would “talk” directly to your hearing aid. Please look around the AMPHL website to find out more about all the stethoscopes mentioned.
Phones: There are several different options for use when using a phone. Some are as simple as using an amplified phone. Another option is the use of a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD). The users, both of whom need to have TDD, would type back and forth to each other instead of speaking. There is also Voice Carry Over (VCO) for people who speak well but cannot hear. The hearing impaired person would speak and the information sent back could be read or through the use of a computer relay system, could be seen as through video services. The use of Telecoil (T-coil) has also proven effective for some people. It locks onto the signal of the caller, and sends their voice directly into the hearing aid, thus bypassing the receiver. It also blocks out the surrounding noise, making it easier for you to hear what the caller is saying.
There are many other options for communications such as email, and faxes instead of phones.
Pagers: Individual pagers may be helpful to those persons who cannot hear overhead paging. It also has proven useful in communication between staff members between floors. Pagers can be voice and digital. Some of the newer voice pagers actually hang around the neck, making it easier to understand what is being said. Others have ports on them, so they could be plugged into FM systems. Text pagers could also be used for those who can’t hear voice or sound pagers.
FM Systems/Assistive Listening Devices: Your audiologist can determine what Assistive device might work best for you. FM systems can be useful for a variety of purposes. You can use one in classroom settings or meetings so you can hear the lecturer and participants better. Some can be linked with a stethoscope so you could use your FM system to listen to lung and heart sounds. With the upcoming development of Blue Tooth technology, the FM possibilities are growing daily. Many manufacturers will also give you a trial period on these types of devices, so be sure to ask when you consider them.
Interpreters: Some larger universities have disability offices, which could accommodate the request of an interpreter. This will take collaboration with the university, and you should notify the disability office of such a request several months in advance, so as to not hamper your transition into school because of the lack of interpreter availability.

Your audiologist is a great asset in determining what assistive devices could help you better reach your goals. Some people love the advantages of using assistive devices, while others believe them too cumbersome. The choice should be between you and your audiologist.

We here at AMPHL wish you the best in your endeavor to become a Respiratory Therapist. Your biggest challenge won’t be your hearing loss, but finding what fits you best in this field. Education is a mainstay of helping people understand hearing loss and overcoming whatever obstacles are placed in your path. As you move forward in your quest feel free to contact AMPHL’s resource person, who will forward your request to the current Respiratory Therapist with hearing loss representative to assist you in answering your questions.

The Forums here on the AMPHL website can be very useful in sharing thoughts and ideas about promoting Respiratory Therapy as a career, educating others, locating assistive devices, and furthering the field of Respiratory Therapy.

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