Throughout my first year in graduate school, we students were reminded of the delicacy of hearing loss. In particular, how patients may respond negatively and seemingly irrational to the bad news. Many times, the negative response is not confined to a few days, but persists of years. It could be the difficulty in accepting they have what is ...

It's official. I have a high-frequency hearing loss. According to an online hearing test, that is. My highest threshold to date measured in the sound booth is a whopping 5 dB, which certainly indicates normal hearing sensitivity. Perhaps it is not my place yet to speak on this topic as a student, but I have a hard time believing that a movement ...

We are headed into what I like to refer to as the home stretch of the semester. Accordingly, I always create a Word document around this time frame called Home Stretch, which includes an all-encompassing to-do schedule. More often that not, it ends up longer than most of the papers I write for class. I suppose this is my best attempt at ...

I have officially started my new practicum placement at the VA hospital in North Little Rock. This placement also doubles as my assistantship, allowing for hourly pay and, more importantly, more practicum hours. In any given week, I may log 16-20 hours of practicum, which is solid for a third-year student. I was told that I would get more ...

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) issued a news release this week stressing the importance of consumers seeing a hearing health practitioner before purchasing hearing aids. Noting the increasing availability of options for purchasing hearing aids online, the state agency cautioned that hearing aids are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug ...

The Better Hearing Institute issued a news release this week warning consumers of the inherent risks associated with purchasing over-the-counter, one-size-fits-all hearing aids instead of consulting a hearing healthcare professional. BHI supports this claim by stating that hearing loss is sometimes a symptom of a serious underlying medical ...

In the current discussion of healthcare reform in the United States, much attention has focused on high cost as a reason that many people can't get the healthcare they need. However, a study recently reported online in the journal Health Services Research says that other barriers often play just as big a role. According to a press release issued ...

Earlier this week we launched our newest specialty site, specifically focused on the products and services that help you to provide excellent patient care and operate a profitable practice. As one might expect, we're calling it the Hearing Practice Management Products & Services Resource Center. At the top of the Products & Services site ...

T-minus one month until my placement at the VA begins. In the meantime, I picked up the Clinical Handbook of Audiology (6th Edition) for supplementary learning and review. You don't realize how much information you have been over in the span of two years until you read back over some of it. I've also come across a few new concepts. (Inertial bone ...

Looking through my daily hearing-industry news feed, I came upon a story about a young South African girl who is struggling after her hearings aids were snatched from her ears. She had been playing in a park when a man walked by and committed the crime. Police believe the thief mistook the hearing aids for earplugs or a Bluetooth device. ...