I Feel Clueless: What can I do when I feel helpless with my patient?

Do you ever feel utterly clueless about what to do with your patient? Say your patient is medically complex and has a list of risk factors that fit Dr. Langmore's 1998 study like a perfect puzzle piece. It feels terrifying to do anything at all. What do you do when the risk and the stakes are high?

First of all, you're not alone. Every SLP, at some point or another, feels clueless with a patient. It might be a condition we've never seen before, a case that stumps us, or an exceptionally medically complex case like the one I just described that would give anyone a run for their money. Being clueless is not the issue. Being afraid to make the wrong decision is not the issue. If you didn't feel clueless, at least occasionally, and if you didn't feel scared occasionally, you probably are clueless about your cluelessness... which is worse!

The truth is, it's not just SLPs who feel helpless. Doctors suffer burnout in extraordinary numbers, which is tied to the feeling of helplessness, which only increases with higher levels of medical complexity. Everyone feels stumped at one point or another. So, what can we do when this feeling creeps up?

This feeling of helplessness is exactly why I created the course Complex Decision-Making in Dysphagia Management: to help us find a path forward when the risk is high, to do something for our patients when it feels like nothing can be done, and to make sense of a situation that feels like a riddle wrapped up in an enigma. There's always a path forward; I hope this course helps you find that path.

*This course is no longer available. Thank you for your interest, and please stay tuned for future courses, such as this one: Let Us Eat: The ethics of swallowing in older adults at high risk