Speech-Language Pathology
Day in the Life
Here's a typical a day in my life!
5:45 a.m.: Time to wake up, get dressed and eat breakfast! I usually make a coffee to go.
6:40 a.m.: I have about an hour commute to the hospital in Delaware.
7:40 a.m.: Arrive at the hospital! I have about a 10 minute walk to get to the speech offices.
7:50 a.m.: Grab a snack and start my chart reviews for the day. At the hospital, I am working in the acute critical care units, specifically in the respiratory units. We see many people with tracheostomy tubes and those receiving assisted respiratory therapy from a ventilator, high flow nasal cannula, BIPAP, etc.
8:30 a.m.: Time to start the day! Today we have two bedside swallow evals in the ICU.
9:30 a.m.: I type up the evals and my supervisor and I prepare to do a Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES) on our next patient.
10:00 a.m.: FEES time! I help feed the patient after my supervisor passes the endoscope into our patient's nose. We decide they are able to get off a modified diet! Yay!
10:30 a.m.: Time to type up the FEES eval and check our work list.
11:00 a.m.: Off to check on some of our patients to see how their swallowing is. My pockets are always full of crackers, applesauce and thickened liquids! Also, always carrying around water and ice chips.
12:00 p.m.: Time for lunch! I usually get about an hour before heading back on the floor.
1:00 p.m.: Time for a Video Flouroscopic Swallow Study! I greet the patient and prepare the barium juices, puree and solids. During the study we instruct the patient in different exercises they can do to improve their swallow.
1:30 p.m.: After the video swallow study, we interpret the report and type it up!
2:00 - 4:00 p.m.: Check in on a few more patients and do one more eval. Once I’m done typing up the reports, that’s my day!
4:00 - 5:00 p.m.: Drive home (maybe get another coffee).
5:00 - 7:00 p.m.: Grab another snack, and log on to Zoom for our Ethics class.
7:00 - 9:30 p.m.: Time to decompress before another long day ahead!
Learn More About the University's Speech-Language Pathology Program
