Hello! I’m Kacie Nankerville, a second-year Speech-Language Pathology graduate student. I completed my Bachelor of Arts degree at West Chester University for Communication Sciences and Disorders with minors in Deaf Studies and Linguistics. Speech pathology is a diverse field with a wide range of opportunities to help patients find their voice, communicate with others, improve their feeding and swallowing abilities, and so much more.
For my second-year full-time clinical experience, I am placed at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. Here, I have the opportunity to work under my supervisor to help children with a variety of disorders and needs. The typical patients I see daily include treatment of articulation disorders, language disorders, implementation of Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC), Apraxia, and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Monday, Wednesday, Friday
7:30 a.m.: Leave to start my commute to St. Christopher’s.
8:45 a.m.: Arrive at the hospital and get settled. I login in to our charting system and see what patients are coming for the day. I print out the schedule and use this time to prep for the patients.
9:00 a.m.: See our first patient of the day (30-45 minutes each session). I bill and document each patient session within the last 5-8 minutes of each session. Then, between patients, I educate the parents/caregiver on what we targeted in the session, how the patient did, and what they can do to carryover strategies at home. I continue to see patients back-to-back until lunch.
12:00 p.m.: Lunch time! I’ll either bring my lunch or head down to the cafeteria and make a salad or a wrap. There’s also a Starbucks in the hospital, so on my extra tired days I’ll buy a coffee!
1:00 p.m.: See more patients until 5:30 p.m.
6:45 p.m.: Wrap up any documentation that still needs to be completed and begin my drive home.
7:30 p.m.: Now that I’m home, I’ll eat dinner, take a shower, check my school email and Blackboard account for assignments, and get ready for bed.
Thursday
Off from externship! These days I typically sleep in, get some chores done, and complete as much homework as I can before the weekend. Having off on Thursdays from my externship and class gives me time to rest and feel refreshed to go in on Fridays! It also has helped me from burning out.
Although the days are busy and the drives are long, I deeply love this field and learning new things every day. I truly feel my clinical skills growing and have gained more confidence as a clinician in just this short time at my externship. I am looking forward to my second externship placement in the spring and being one step closer to my clinical fellowship!
Learn More About the University's Speech-Language Pathology Program