The Scope: Why I started a blog
George Barnes MS CCC-SLP
The Scope: Dysphagia blog that goes beyond the swallow.
I’ve never really viewed myself as a blogger. Maybe it’s the image of a blogger that kinda throws me off a bit. Waking up late with messed-up hair and sitting at the table with coffee in hand. Or the infamous coffee house-writer, sitting right by the window so all the pedestrians can see the brilliant words you’re coming up with by the minute. Come to think of it, I don’t even drink that much coffee. I don’t know if I even see myself as a writer per se. But what I do know is that I enjoy the process of learning. And writing allows me to do just that.
I was always overwhelmed by the amount of information a med SLP needs to consume in order to keep up with our incredibly diverse caseload AND the constant changes from new research and clinical trends. I can’t complain because this is why I got into the field in the first place. I knew I’d never be bored in a field where you can never see the same patient twice. And I was right. I’m the opposite of bored. I have to constantly try new ways just to keep up.
In order to keep current, we have to be diligent about our learning. Thankfully nowadays there are MANY ways we can devour information: website subscription, rigorous consumption of research, involvement in a journal club, or your subscription to this blog (if it’s my blog you rely on, I hope it’s not the only thing you do!). I, myself, do all of these things (yes, I even reference my own blog from time to time- sad right?), but the #1 way I learn is by writing.
Writing forces me to piece together all of the many complex and dynamic pieces of a puzzle into a neat “whole.” It forces me to consume enough information where I am confident enough to let somebody else read it and use the information in their clinical practice. It’s one thing when you’re learning for yourself, but when you're responsible for putting information out into the world for others, you have to know your stuff.
Writing creates a productive cycle. You learn to write and the act of writing solidifies the knowledge for long-term use. It’s one thing to hear something in a course or reference something through Google, but it’s another to really dive into a question head first. To surround yourself with conflicting research and descriptions of anatomy and physiology you’ve never heard of. When you get in deep like this, there’s no way to come out without writing your way through it.
What resulted from this process is a new way of thinking about our field. With so much to know and so little time to know it, my hope is that this blog broadens your scope of understanding for abstract concepts as it has mine. Broadens your scope for things like complex medical processes, innovative technology, and new insights about patient management strategies. I want to dive into topics that go beyond the swallow but are still incredibly relevant to us as med SLPs. Things you’ve always been curious about and things you never knew enough about to be curious about (you don’t know what you don’t know). There will be depth. There will be breadth. But most importantly, we will have a fun way to learn more about the field we love so much. The whole point of it all? Well, the more we learn, the more we help. And that’s what it’s really all about.
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