And now for something completely different.
It’s been over one year since I last wrote here. In that time, I have experienced joy, sadness, exhiliration, exhaustion, and more, some in greater amounts than others. As seems to be common among medical SLPs, I have ended up on the wrong side of burnout. I’ve been working in acute care for going on five years, and it’s finally worn me out.
In this process, I’ve begun exploring new areas and trying new things. After years of talking about it, I’ve finally worked up the courage and the confidence to start developing my own niche. I’ve long wanted to work with adults with hearing loss, in many areas of their communication and swallowing needs, but I wanted first to have the experience working in my native language before doing so in my second language.
In order to pursue this new goal, I have left the hospital I’ve called home for the past three years and am in the process of getting set up at an outpatient clinic. The outpatient world is vastly different from inpatient, and though the paperwork and billing are daunting, I am very excited to be making this change. It’s taken a long time to get here, and I aim to do it right.
The hardest part of such a big change is figuring out where to start. Starting fresh is both exciting and terrifying; it’s amazing how comfortable you can get in one situation, and how hard it is, while in it, to imagine being anywhere else. As I think about how challenging this change is for me, I am reminded of many of my patients, who had no say in the sudden and dramatic changes which confronted them. Their resilience and determination inspire me. I have many ideas, and have slowly been collecting my thoughts, organizing them, and discussing them with colleagues.
Writing has long been something that brings enjoyment, and this website has always been a nice side project to work on. For the past year, I have been too exhausted to put any effort into side projects, and I have even found little energy for continuing education, which I value greatly. The questions have been there, but the energy to pursue them has not. Coming to this realization was helpful in accepting that the time for change is now.
So much is uncertain right now, though in time I know I will gain renewed confidence and vigor. For now, I will be working diligently to meet new goals which have me excited about the work I do. I will find new questions to ask, new things I want to learn, new challenges to overcome.
The unfamiliarity of my new world has left me with a drive I thought was lost. And yet, I still impatiently wait for things to be familiar once again.