I want to do medical SLP and for a long time, I really wanted to go to MGH but now I'm not so sure. I got a partial scholarship from them, but I have a cheap local option in New York.
I was wondering how much of a difference going to a program with medical focus makes to get into medical speech. I've heard from slps working at hospitals that they never went to such a program and many of them stayed local and cheap, but they have been out in the field for about ten years now and they hadn't even known of medical speech programs at the time.
I know that medical speech is especially hard to get into. A lot of hospitals will not even consider hiring you if your clinical fellowship was not at a hospital. MGH provides plenty of medical clinical sites while a local program would not. But I have a guaranteed clinical externship at a hospital in New York if I were to stay...granted, the quality of the hospital isn't quite up to those of MGH's standard. Also, I'm not guaranteed a clinical fellowship year here in New York. Neither am I if I went to MGH since clinical fellowships are found on our own.
Would it make that much of a difference where I go? I still really want to go to MGH but the cost of tuition and moving to another city is really insane! I'm just wondering if I can justify that cost.
