Hello and welcome back for another episode of the Future Ear Radio Podcast! This week, I sat down with five amazing Audiologists, who recapped their recent mission trip to the country of Jordan where they provided hearing health services to some of the most underserved people in the world. My guests for this episode were, D’Anne Rudden, Susan Sheehy, Maura Chippendale, Yasmin Battat and Mary Thorpe.
These five ladies comprise a portion of the ENTHEOS, “Hearing the Call” mission trip that traveled to Jordan. During our conversation, they recap their time over there, detailing:
- The overall experience
- Expectations leading into the trip and post-trip takeaways
- What the days were like and the direct impact they made on the refugees that they served
- The efficacy that “putting a hand up, not out” has on combatting burn out
- The surprising amount of collaboration across the AuDs that were there
- Learning from the people they served and the culture that they were embedded in
- Imparting knowledge on the students that they were working with, so as to create continuity with their mission
Really cool to hear a set of first-hand accounts on what was a life-changing trip for these five Audiologists.
-Thanks for Reading-
Dave
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Dave Kemp:
Hi, I’m your host, Dave Kemp, and this is Future Ear Radio. Each episode, we’re breaking down one new thing, one cool new finding that’s happening in the world of hearables, the world of voice technology. How are these worlds starting to intersect? How are these worlds starting to collide? What cool things are going to come from this intersection of technology? Without further ado, let’s get on with the show. All right, and welcome to another episode of the Future Ear Radio podcast. I’m very excited, I’m joined today by a portion of the Hearing The Call team and to introduce the team and Hearing The Call. I’ll pass it over to my good friend, D’Anne Rudden. So, D’Anne, do you mind sharing a little bit about who you are and what you do?
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
Sure. Dave, thanks so much for having us on the podcast. I mean, your podcast is legendary and so getting the opportunity to have a conversation about one of my favorite topics on your podcast is like a dream. So I’m D’Anne Rudden. I’m a private practice owner in Longmont, Colorado. And I was, and I guess I am, a member of the Hearing The Call team that recently went on a mission to Jordan. Hearing The Call is the non-profit arm of Entheos Hearing Cooperative. So the cooperative is a group of private practice owners who have all come together to support one another, not just for pricing purposes but also to make sure that we’re sticking true to our own personal values. And one of those pieces of the puzzle is giving back. So that has been done through the nonprofit part of the organization called Hearing The Call. And my dream team of people that… And it wasn’t my team.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
They allowed me to come on this amazing trip, so I was just a worker bee in this amazing group of people. And I mean, it was just such a magical thing. So I’m going to stop talking because I want to introduce you to the rest of the team. And I will first say that we’ve got four additional people. There were more people that were a part of the team, but we’re going to represent them mightily. So I’m going to introduce the people on our team. One is Susan Sheehy. She is from Alabama. I’ll let her talk a little bit about herself. Maura Chippendale from Florida, Jasmin Battat from New Jersey, and Mary Thorpe from Sarasota, Florida as well. So we got a couple of Floridians. We got east coast, west coast, everybody in between.
Dave Kemp:
That’s perfect.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
So I’ll let you guys jump in and say a little bit about each other.
Dave Kemp:
Perfect. Susan, you want to start?
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
Sure. I’m Susan Sheehy, as D’Anne mentioned, and I am a private practice owner in Huntsville, Alabama. I’ve been in private practice for about 20 years. I am actually co-owner of our practice here.
Dave Kemp:
That’s awesome. Maura?
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Hi, I’m Maura Chippendale. I am, again, a private practice owner in Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Florida. I’ve been a member of advance for a couple years now, but I actually was able to go on a humanitarian trip four years ago with Hearing The Call to South Africa. So it was actually… I left four years ago yesterday to go on that trip and I wanted more, so I was so pleased to be able to go on this trip.
Dave Kemp:
Awesome. Jasmin?
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
Hey, I’m Jasmin Battat. I’m also a private practice audiologist. My practice is in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, actually a startup. I’m three years in, started right before the pandemic, so it’s been an adventure. Joined Entheos about two years ago. It was probably the best decision I ever made because I got to meet all these fabulous people and have these opportunities to do things like Hearing The Call, which has been a dream of mine. So thank you for having me, and I’m really excited to see these beautiful ladies and talk to them again. I missed you guys. It’s been like a week, but honestly, I really missed you.
Dave Kemp:
All right, last but not least, Mary.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
Hi, I’m Mary Thorpe, a private practice audiologist in Sarasota, Florida. I’ve been a member of Entheos for six years, and I have been on many mission trips all around the world. And I can give you a little bit of perspective if y’all would like about how this all came about.
Dave Kemp:
That would be awesome.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
And I think, as audiologists, especially working in our own practices, after a while we get a little bit burned out. I mean, it’s a grind and we’re all doing the best we can. And sometimes we need something to lift us back up to remind us why we do what we do. And I joined Entheos about six years ago, mostly because I really wanted to be involved in one of those pillars, which was giving back to the community. So Entheos has three pillars, which is the cooperative, which is the business side of it, best practices, and give back. And so give back was important to me. And it was a means for me to help others in my community as well as internationally. And it just reminds us why we do what we do. So after I joined, there’s a cute little couple in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Nora and Ken Stewart, who just really were the driving force behind this.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
Nora Stewart just had the vision, and that woman just put things together and she put this cooperative together and she found some partners. I think their first mission trip was to Amman, Jordan to see refugees, Syrian and Palestinian refugees. And one of the most important things for us when we go into a country is that we have a good partner. So they had a good partner, and we need a partner that helps support us in terms of setting up where we’ll have clinics, setting up who the patients will be, and that they’ll get there to us, helping to set up arrangements for transportation, hotel and things like that. So that’s how it started. One of the audiologists in Entheos had a good partner in that region and it just materialized.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
And from Jordan, we ended up in Africa, in Zambia, Mozambique, in South Africa and on to Guatemala, Ecuador. And we’re going to be going to Mexico in August and so we’ve really expanded. And in the beginning, when we started this, we might have had 15 members in Entheos, but it’s so rewarding. It’s addictive. Once you do this, you just want to do more. And when you come back home, you’re very high from this because you’ve just experienced something incredible. And you can see the smiles. Everybody’s smiling.
Dave Kemp:
I was going to say-
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
It stays with you for a long time, and it does give you perspective about doing what we do. And I think that’s the good general background on that. I really want the rest of them to share their experiences. I have been very fortunate to have many, many experiences doing this. I’m still coming back, and I will come back as long as I can. So I’m going to turn it over to them, to whoever would like to speak next, but that gives you an idea of how we started up on all this.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Yeah, so just to give you a little bit of perspective about the population we were seeing in Jordan, we were seeing refugees and did a little bit of research. Some of my sources say that there are about two million Palestinian refugees in Jordan and about 1.4 million Syrian refugees in Jordan. A large percentage of them live below the poverty line and lack access to quality education and healthcare. In Jordan, there are about 5 refugee camps for Syrians, 83% of those live in poverty, and there are 10 Palestinian camps. We did provide services in air Irbid, which is a Palestinian camp. It was started as a tent camp and then, eventually, they built little mud huts, and then those mud huts began to be built with concrete.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Irbid has the largest prevalence of people with chronic health problems, 16% of the overall population. It’s ranked second. I’m sorry, ranked second was Zarqa, which was this second camp that we served, and they have 15% of the overall population having chronic health problems. And the problem with the individuals with hearing loss is only 19% of them have hearing aids, 19% of them. And we saw so many of them with moderate to profound hearing losses. I mean, we didn’t see anybody with normal hearing come through those doors. It was at least moderate degree of loss and above. And these guys and kids and men and women are going around without the ability to hear, without the ability to have a chance educationally. And if you can’t get educated, you have no chance of getting out of that poverty.
Dave Kemp:
So walk me through, how many of you were there over there, and how long were you all there for?
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
There were 10 audiologists there and several volunteers, I want to say 4 or 5 volunteers, at least 4 volunteers. So we need somebody to do administration also, like check people in, get data from them. It’s important for us to get information on each person we see because we want to be able to see what the ages, et cetera, of these populations. So we want to collect this data so that we can report some of this to the World Health Organization. And so data collecting is super important. We’re in any of these places. And you do have a… In Jordan, you have a inordinately amount of younger children with severe to profound hearing loss, either through genetic reasons or bombings, et cetera, the Syrians, et cetera, things like that. So it’s a larger population of children with really significant hearing loss that we see when we go there. And so we also had students with us, and I’m going to turn this over to Jasmin too, because they all had a really great time. We had some Palestinian students who came and really bonded with all of the audiologists. And I think she’s going to give you a good perspective on that.
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
Yeah. Let me just add to one of the things that blew me away, and it came after the first day of clinic. We had clinic three days. I took my son along. He was 16 years old, and we chatted every night after clinic. And he asked me, he said, “Mom, I don’t understand how a 7 year old, a 12 year old, a 6 year old, a 4 year old for the first time ever has been diagnosed with a hearing loss or for the first time ever has gotten fit with a hearing loss. How come they’re experiencing this for the first time now?” So I think that’s the thing that really boggles your mind. We take access for granted here. We take our health… I know some people can criticize our healthcare, but we have accessibility.
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
And what really smacks you in the face over there is that they don’t have accessibility. So when you activate a child’s hearing aids for the first time and they’re seven years old and they start hearing those first moments, they’re kind of just shocked. They don’t know what they’re hearing. And then, all of a sudden, a smile breaks out and they start giggling and laughing. So it’s just I think that experience is so powerful. And so, yeah, every night we think about that question “How come they’re hearing for the first time ever at age seven?” So that’s the experience that you come back from and you’re thinking about in a happy way and in a very sad way. I know some of you guys here can relate to that and what that felt like.
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
As for the students, they were wonderful. I’ve never seen students so zealous about learning it. They didn’t take that for granted. It was an opportunity, and they wanted to absorb every single moment of it. They were in there. They were our translators. They were patient advocates. They were giving patients information and receiving. And the best thing about it is they had a great audiology background. Even their teacher, their professor was there onsite explaining everything to them as we were doing it, as we were explaining to them, and they were just… It was just amazing having them there alongside us learning and also teaching us. So I know some of us can speak to what that was like, D’Anne, Susan, Maura, Mary.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Well, and learning a new culture, the Muslim culture. We had to be respectful that if we were testing a woman who took her a hijab off, we couldn’t bring a man through the room. And the students help us understand how to be respectful of the culture. And I think we knew, but we just get testing and we forget, “Oh my gosh,” you know?
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
Yeah, but to live it, that’s the experience that’s kind of cool too. You get to experience it with them.
Dave Kemp:
So how many of you were there for the… How many of you was this your first trip? So Jasmin-
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
I was, yep.
Dave Kemp:
…Susan. D’Anne, have you done one of these before or was this your first?
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
This was my first trip with Entheos with Hearing The Call. So it was really interesting for me to see how they did things as compared to other humanitarian trips that I had been on. And one of the things that, again, going back to what Mary said early on in the pillars of Entheos and what’s important to the group is best practices. And the cool thing for me is that the way that Hearing The Call approaches humanitarian work is those people get the same kind of care as we would give them in our own clinics. They get Real-Ear. They get programmable devices that are specified, and they are personalized for that particular person’s hearing loss. They are tested, sometimes retested to make sure that things are reliable. They have custom ear molds made, if that’s necessary.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
In Jordan, I swear everyone had to have ear molds because they just had so much hearing loss. They get wax removal. We had an ENT with us that was Jordanian, I believe. And they get the same level of care that I would give in my own clinic. So it’s not like we’re going over there and dropping off hearing aids and saying, “Well, hope it all goes okay.” They’re getting great care, and they also get aftercare. They get follow-up care. So they’re not just left on their own devices. They’re really getting the highest level of care possible.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
And, Dave, you have to appreciate all the work that goes into setting up a clinic because we go with giant suitcases of computers and portable audiometers [inaudible 00:18:03] waves, Real-Ear systems, hearing aids, parts and pieces, cleaning products, and we go into a place and we have to put it all together. We have to set it all up before everybody comes. And guess what we do at the end of the day?
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
And take it apart.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Take it all down [inaudible 00:18:30] all back. And if you know anything about-
Dave Kemp:
Al labor of love.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
…[inaudible 00:18:30] packing things-
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
Oh, so much.
Dave Kemp:
Susan, how about you? I was just going to-
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Especially when you get somewhere and you find out one of the suitcases is not with us.
Dave Kemp:
On the other side of the world.
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
Yeah. And that happened. And then that’s when… To me, one of the other things is the beauty of the collaborative effort of the audiologist, everybody just working together in this just spirit of we can do this, we can manage any situation, and we’re going to make this right, and right for all these people that we’re going to be serving. And so problems do come up, and it was quite a eye-opening experience for me personally since it was my first trip. But again, everybody rallies together, suggestions are thrown out, and then a solution is found, and then everybody acts on it so that you can keep things going and keep the flow going, because you want to see as many of these people as you can see and provide as much care as possible. So it really warms the heart to be with a team and have that kind of spirit and that kind of just love for what you’re doing and love for the people that you’re treating and was a huge takeaway in the sharing back and forth of knowledge between the audiologists, between the students, and then the appreciation from the patients.
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
And even with a language barrier, again, as Jasmin pointed out, and they call it the Hearing Smiles, it’s just that breaks any barriers of language that you can imagine when you see a smile like that and you know you’ve made such a difference for that person’s life, whether it’s their education. I know in one case it was a young woman who was looking to have a relationship and find someone to be a partner in her life. And I mean, the stories and all, they just touch your heart. And we do not realize how privileged we are to have access that we have and seeing it and experience it firsthand, just you’re never going to be the same after you do this.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
I just wanted to comment on how the goal of our give back when we do these international trips is not just to provide relief. We want to move these countries into development. That’s why it was important to have those students there. And actually, Nomad Adam and myself went and set up an office with our partner at Life for Relief and Development. And we actually had an audiometer donated. We had a tympanometer donated. We brought in all hearing aid supplies, et cetera, so that the people that we did see on this trip can see an audiologist monthly, at least once a month in there. And so they will have access to somebody when we’re gone. So we really like to take these countries from relief to development, and we are moving ahead. We do have an audiologist that will be seeing these patients and doing follow-up care and has a computer to program hearing aids, et cetera too also. So that’s also part of our goal is to make sure that they do have this follow-up care.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Yeah, that’s important because I mean, you can hand out hearing aids, and we all know in our own practices, it could be two weeks later something happens and it’s not working anymore. And what are these people going to do? They need somebody to help them navigate the waters of maintaining it, or they might be thinking they need to throw it away instead of just looking at “Oh, it’s blocked with moisture or whatever.”
Dave Kemp:
Yeah, I think that that… I’m glad you touched on that, Mary, because I thought that was really interesting. When Jasmin was talking about the students, that’s super interesting to me. So how old are these students and how many of them are there? How did this part of the whole humanitarian trip come to be?
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
This was set up ahead of time. The head of our humanitarian committee is Nemet Adam. She works tirelessly on all of this. There’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes, other than us showing up to provide care at that time. So she’s all about making connections. So she’s making connections with the universities. She’s speaking to other audiologists through other people, through the ENTs, et cetera. And also getting help from our partner. Our partner in Jordan is Life for Relief and Development, and they’ve been great. They took all the names. They have all the information on all the patients that we’re seen, so that there’s phone numbers, et cetera, to notify them when they will have a clinic day. They’re providing us with an office space in Amman free for us to help them provide follow-up care. And so, basically, all the students were there from behind the scenes efforts and reaching out to doctors and universities, et cetera. And that’s pretty much how it came about.
Dave Kemp:
So I guess, this question’s for one of the ones that this was your first time. What was the expectation going in, and then what was it like, I guess, after that first day? Because I think going off of what Mary had been talking about earlier about burnout, and I know D’Anne you’re passionate about this topic too, this is a really interesting feel good way to maybe alleviate something that seems to be really pervasive. So I’m just curious to just maybe hear a firsthand account of what that was like leading into it and then on the other side of it.
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
To be honest, I don’t know what my expectations were going in. I told a few people that I had read an article many, many years ago, too many that I don’t want to admit to that I was fresh out of graduate school. And someone had gone to the West Bank. It was an audiologist had gone to the West Bank. And as I read the article, I thought “I really want to do something like this. I just want to give without any thought about who I’m doing it for or how much I’m getting for it or how it’s going to fit on my…” The typical business stuff. I just want to go do and do with just a whole heart and just out of pure wanting to help. And that’s, like I said, many years, and as it approached upon me, I mean, I had a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of stress. “Am I going to be able to use the equipment? Am I going to be able to do what I need to do to help along? Am I going to fit in with everybody and be able to help them?” So just a little bit of that that you get as well.
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
Of course, no reason to feel any of that because once you get in there, you find your place and you start doing, and you’re just so focused on providing care and trying to be involved and get these patients seen and treated properly, that all that goes away. And then, again, the reward is there at the end when you’ve made this difference. And, in my personal opinion, the burnout comes with, particularly, in private practice and business ownership is everything is about earning a profit, keeping the books filled, and that stuff just wears you out after a while. And you want to just give to give and help and make a difference. And I think it was Jasmin’s son, when we were going over everything and having our wrap-up discussion, the word eager he mentioned and serving people that are eager for what you have.
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
We tend to be in a situation in our practices where people aren’t necessarily eager for what we have to offer. And so you’re shifting to more of a salesperson kind of mentality instead of the mentality of being a healthcare provider. Here, you’re feeling like that healthcare provider, because these people are eager and they want what you have to offer and they trust and believe in you. And that, to me, was a huge personal reward because I know my intentions and motives are good, and I feel like they know our intentions and motives are obviously good. And so that was how it was on the other side of things.
Dave Kemp:
Thank you for sharing. That’s very interesting, and I can’t help but agree. From the sentiment I’ve heard, yeah, I think it sounds a little bit different than maybe how some of the patient interactions are here. What about you, Jasmin?
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
Yeah, I have to say going… I didn’t really know what to expect. I had attended a local Hearing The Call event, and I got a flavor for what it’s like. It is chaotic. We’re all trying to get this thing done. We all have that same goal, but to get into the rhythm and groove of it on day one, where you walk in, you don’t know what to expect or how it’s going to go or what problems are going to come up and hit you because every day it’s a different problem. So I feel so fortunate to be with so many people with their heads on right and people who think outside the box and people who are creative and so giving with their hearts. So yeah, you go into that.
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
And I want to say that, and I said it last night in our owner’s meeting, I think doing this is a very selfish thing on our part. We want to experience a certain feeling and a feeling of fulfillment inside. So I feel like we personally are benefiting more than we are. I at least feel that way. I’m personally benefiting more than I am helping. And you’re constantly chasing that feeling when you feel the impact of that, so that was truly my experience.
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
In terms of burnout, I have to say coming back to the states and sitting in my little office feels so… It feels so small compared to what I was a part of a week ago. Problems seemed so tiny. This week, I really had a hard time getting back into the office things. I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I really had a hard time with it because it just didn’t feel… I can’t put words to it. It just didn’t feel the same way. Yeah, D’Anne.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
I mean, I was using the “Oh, I have jet lag brain.” I think I’ve used that all week. I’m not going to lie. But what I really meant was I’m dreaming of next opportunities. That was part of my week. And I was reflecting on this past week like, “Oh, this time last week I was doing X, Y, Z.” And then someone would ask me a question. I’m kind of like, “What? Sorry, I must have jet lag brain,” because I am just absorbing and reliving those feelings that we’re all experiencing and we’re all looking for having that again. And to Jasmin’s point, the problems that we see sometimes that feel so big, you have an experience like this and you come back and you’re like, “This is not a big deal. It’s fine. I can do this.” If I can go set up a clinic… When we walk in, we’re moving furniture “Where’s the outlet? Oh my God, oh, we got to calibrate this.” If we can do that, set up, tear down three days in a row, what’s going to happen in my clinic that’s that big of a deal, really?
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
And it’s also I have a small practice. I have me and a practice manager and another audiologist. And being with a team like that, where I can be in this room and help Jasmin and go into this room and D’Anne helps me in this room and Mary’s there and Susan’s there, it’s like having that collaboration was so special. And now I’m like, “Where is everybody?”
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
I’m missing that too. I have to say that maybe that was one of the most impactful things. And I think a lot of private practice audiologists work on their own, not in larger groups, so to have that exposure, to have somebody with 20, 30 years of experience or exposure to a different kind of work and to be like, “Oh, there’s a shortcut they did. You had a little shortcut. You shared a little gem with one another.” To me, that is invaluable. And I think that we can all agree that we were all just as much like students as we were teachers of one another and that there’s no price to that. There’s no price to that.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
Okay. One of my favorite parts about the whole thing was actually watching the people that were with us that were not audiologists and their transformation over that period of time. I mean, I can’t even imagine as a parent… Jasmin and Susan brought their sons, but I brought one of my very best friends that has been my best friend for 25 years. We went to college together. She saw me do my undergrad and “Oh, she does this hearing stuff.” And then she now was a part of this, so I had worlds colliding. That was one thing. But hearing her talk about how it impacted her was almost more juicy than what was happening for me, because we would come back after the day was over exhausted and rung out and whatever. And we’re both like, “That was the best day ever.” And she just even sent me a text and I mean, she’s like, “I just had the sweetest online conversation with the Jordanian audiologist teacher.” So now she’s got a connection and she said, “He raved about it and said that the students want to do this every semester.” So now she’s talking to them and we’ve got relationships and people just wanting to continue the good juju.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
I was going to say that these are life-changing things for us. First of all, the teams collaborating with the other audiologist is amazing. We’re all over the country. And that’s just a little magical bit of it, but we all come home, and it has changed our lives and we’ll never go back. And like D’Anne said, I’ve been able to have all of my adult children have been on a mission trip. Two of my very closest friends I’ve taken, and you know what it does when you bring family members and good friends, is they get it. They start to get what you’re doing because they became involved and they will want to talk about it. And when you talk about what you’re doing, et cetera, and all that, they understand now. They didn’t really get that before. So, honestly, it is life-changing and I’m so grateful to be involved and to have all of you wonderful audiologists and be a part of it. And honestly, it’s changed my life.
Dave Kemp:
I feel like this is such a net positive. It’s such a net good. And the thing that keeps going through my head is like, “How do you foster more of this?” So, Mary, as you seem to be kind of the ringleader here, you’ve been on the most of these. I’m curious of how you all even came to be a part of this, and how does one get more involved in this kind of thing?
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
We all became a part of it because we are part of Entheos Audiology Cooperative. And so when they are behind the scenes making these plans, they put this information out to whoever would like to volunteer. We pay our own expenses to go and our own airfare. There’s expenses to stay in hotels and all that, so it’s not like we’re doing this because somebody’s paying us to do that. No, we’re spending money to do this. And so, if you want to be involved, we have taken audiologists that aren’t members. We have a non-member invitation to other audiologists who would like to go. We’ve had members from the major manufacturers attend, from all of them have attended international trips, so it’s not just open to us. It’s open to anybody who wants to go. So if there’s room on the team, I think the Entheos members get first crack at it to be able to sign up, but certainly, we have had outside volunteers and audiologists that have come also on these trips.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
And the other thing is, all of us are involved with local Hearing The Call give backs, so that we can also say to our own patients when we’re going to overseas that “No, we’re also helping people right here in this country because there’s plenty of people in this country who don’t have access to hearing healthcare.” And every single one on this talk tonight is involved in local Hearing The Calls. And we do have days that we see patients and take care of children and adults also in the same manner.
Dave Kemp:
Okay, so help me, I guess, just to understand what comes next. So will there be another one of these? It seems like what you said, Mary, you get addicted to it. And based on the smiling faces that I’ve seen throughout the whole conversation, everybody seems to be basking in how awesome this was. And so I think your words are ringing true. So I guess I’d just be curious to hear from you all, it sounds like this is pretty life-changing and it’s going to be a part of you moving forward. But again, I like putting it in this context of knowing that you’re representative of probably a lot of other people that you’re just ahead of them a little bit. And so speaking to them and saying almost as a nudge that you should get and think about your career like this, because again, going back to what D’Anne said and Mary about burnout, it seems like this is such a great remedy for it. And so I’m just curious to hear how you’re thinking about this. I know it’s super fresh in your mind, but if anybody wants to chime in on how you’re thinking about all of this moving forward.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
I mean, I’ve been an… I always say I’ve been around a long time now. I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve owned my practice for 20 years. And I would say, when I went on my first mission, it did, it changed me dramatically. And it was like, “I can’t go back. How can I have this feeling again for myself, but then how can I help to foster this in my own backyard even?” And I think it seems… And it feels so big. When you’re your own audiologist and you try thinking like, “Well, I don’t even know how you would start that thing,” I felt like it was beyond my capabilities as a single person to try to do. What has been very fulfilling for me is that I don’t have to reinvent the wheel. There are people that have come before me that have paved the way for me to continue to do the work and to help to bring others into it, because it truly is something where, from a burnout standpoint, all of us in one form or another experience daily, or just over the course of time, “I don’t know if I have another 10 years in me.” I mean, I really was feeling that way before I started doing this type of work.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
And now I’m like, “Yeah, you know what, I can continue to do what I do even better in my day to day life because I have this outlet.” And the structure and the format of how Hearing The Call treats people not only overseas, but locally, it’s sustainable. It’s something where you really are doing good work and in a good way. And I would encourage anyone who is listening that is thinking to themselves “Man, I just don’t know that if I have 10 more years in this in the attrition and audiology,” and I would say, “Try giving back.” The moment you give back, man, it’s like somebody is holding you up and saying, “You’re valuable and you can keep going. And these people that you’re looking at are part of the reason that I feel like I can keep going because they’ve got my back too,” which I mean just over the moon for all of it.
Dave Kemp:
Yeah. I mean, I guess going off of what you said, it’s like the whole notion, I think it was Jasmin that said it, about the way that the patient interaction is here versus over there. And to your point, you’re feeling like you’re really valued. Your skills are in really high demand. And I think it’s just this whole thing’s so neat because, like Mary said too, when you’re over there, you’re imparting a lot of your knowledge over there. So there’s a continuity of this. It’s not just a three day thing.
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
Right, whether we’re doing Hearing The Call globally or Hearing The Call locally, we look at this as a hand up, not a handout. And when you empower people to live better, be better, hear better, it makes sense. We’re part of a community, and when we can help the community as a whole, it helps us. So as Jasmin was saying, yeah, we’re helping them, but we’re also helping us. It’s just a whole circle of being there.
Susan Sheehy, AuD:
I was going to say, and that carries over to our regular patients. I think that when you feel this way… My staff said today “You’re glowing.” And this was my first day back, because I’ve taken a little extra time after we left. But yeah, that was one of the first things they said to me. And I do feel like I’m glowing, but I feel like not only is it going to make me better with my staff, because I’m in a better head space now, it’s also going to make me better with my regular patients. I think I’m going to have more patience and just feel better overall. I think it’ll make me a better counselor with my patients. Having had this experience, I think I can use this experience to help treat and manage my regular patients on a day to day basis because having that juxtaposition of what I experienced there and then the reality here and be able to sort of bring that in in a kind way with patients so that maybe they see things a little bit differently. Maybe this will help them to be a little more accepting, a little more eager, like I said, to embrace what we do. And so I think it just makes you a more rounded person.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
So I’m going to chime in on that, on the back of Susan, is what it does for some of our patients is I have lots of pictures up hanging on my walls of where we’ve been and what we do. And it really imparts more trust in your patients, in your private practice. They feel like they can trust you. They know you’re doing something internationally and in your community. And that’s just a big bonus in your private practice.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
And we don’t do it alone. I mean, I know we’ve talked about the other audiologists, but Oak Tree was amazing. I called you Dave. I said, “Hey, we’re going on this thing. Would you guys even consider helping us out with some supplies?” And man, you did not hesitate. I mean, you were like, “What do you need?” I mean, and it was so refreshing to feel like we’re also getting that support. We have manufacturers that are giving us support. We have people that can’t go on trips themselves, so they give maybe dollars to the organization to help fund and support purchase of things that we need that we can’t get donated. So there’s lots of ways to be involved. You don’t have to get on a plane to be involved.
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
I just have to add to that, I actually coveted like one of the HEINE otoscopes. I kept it in my little pocket because I don’t know about you guys, but one or two of the otoscopes there I could not use. I couldn’t see through. It was not effective, so I was like, “This one’s mine.” Nobody noticed, but it worked for me, so thank you, Dave. But I want to add to what D’Anne said about it’s a community effort. I feel like there were so many ways people were involved in this who weren’t directly involved in this. There were people who were sending supplies over. There were manufacturers. There were our spouses. There were our friends. So I know that there are so many ways in which this rolls out, but it’s not just audiologists going. It’s audiologists taking all the love that the people around them have to give, whether that be donated toys, clothes, hearing aids, supplies, time, watching their kids, covering their practices. This is an all-out effort to get whatever needs to get done over there, and I think that’s what… Toothbrushes. Yeah. I think that’s what makes it so special because you know you’re going, and the people here have your back and the people there have your back, so it is definitely a community event.
Dave Kemp:
Yeah. I just think this is so cool. I knew that you all as… I know a lot of audiologists go on these humanitarian trips. And to be honest, I’ve never really had a real breakdown of what goes on in these. And so this is just really, really interesting to hear what’s going on. And now that I better understand the impact that you’re all making, it’s pretty profound. It’s profound for a lot of different reasons. I mean, I think that you’re making a real direct impact. There’s a community aspect to it. It’s helping to alleviate burnout. You’re collaborating with one another. I mean, like I said, there’s so many net positives to this, so I just think it’s awesome. Closing thoughts? Anybody want to chime in with some last thoughts?
Maura Chippendale, AuD:
I think, Dave, you need to volunteer on the next trip.
Dave Kemp:
I would love that. If there’s a spot, I would love it.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
Can I say, if anybody’s interested, please contact HearingTheCall.org. If you would like more information, we’d be more than happy to get that information to you. If you want to learn more about how you can help in any way, that would be great. All are welcome.
Dave Kemp:
Fantastic.
Jasmin Battat, AuD:
I just want to add one last thing. I truly believe that anything that goes towards HearingTheCall.org directly translates to the patients and the people we’ve worked with because I have seen it. I have taken these supplies with my hands and provided them to those patients. It was not lost in the shuffle. And if people have hesitated in terms of donating or giving to any other organization, this is not that organization. We have taken those donations and put them to use right away. So trust that this is donations and this is love and giving in action.
Dave Kemp:
Awesome. Well said. Mic drop. Well, thank you so much. Thanks, D’Anne, for helping to coordinate this so quickly. I can’t say enough good things about this. This is really cool. I’m a big Hearing The Call fan.
Mary Thorpe, AuD:
Thanks so much.
D’Anne Rudden, AuD:
Thanks, Dave.
Dave Kemp:
All right, thanks everybody. We’ll chat with you next time. Thanks for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future Ear Radio. For more content like this, just head over to futureear.co, where you can read all the articles that I’ve been writing these past few years on the worlds of voice technology and hearables and how the two are beginning to intersect. Thanks for tuning in, and I’ll chat with you next time.
