Medical Externship Placements?

[Gingiestrong]

Hey all,

So I have a question for current grad students (especially those in programs with a Med SLP focus), or anyone really that has had experience in medical settings. I'm currently in the process of applying for my 2nd year externships, and looking to apply to several hospitals, outpatient clinics, etc. for the adult population. I'm primarily interested in working with individuals with aphasia and TBI. That being said, what has been your general experience with acute care settings vs. inpatient and outpatient rehab? What did you enjoy the most? Also, how many clock hours did you gain from these experiences? 

I'm mostly interested to see what a typical day was like for you working in these settings (especially acute care). Was the focus mostly on swallowing eval/treatment, or did you have the chance to administer a wide variety of diagnostic and treatment approaches? I'm also concerned about gaining enough clock hours through these placements. I've been told by many people that medical settings tend to be unpredictable in the amount of hours you'll receive,  whereas this is not much of a concern with school placements. 

Sorry for the novel ya'll, this has just been a stressful process lol. I look forward to hearing any input! 

[jpiccolo]

I'm doing mostly inpatient rehab right now but starting to increase with acutes as well. Rehab gets a little repetitive as I see most people twice a day, but planning and activities is easy. We don't usually follow acutes after eval except for diet checks and occasional aphasia tx. Rehab has been mostly cog tx with some aphasia, swallowing, and oral motor/dysarthria. Acutes is split between bedside swallow, speech evals, and some videos. Generally I get more hours on rehab since I see them twice whereas acute evals are 10-15 min. Overall I have plenty of hours, way over 400 since this is my last practicum. It will depend on the number of admits to rehab and orders on acutes. My placement focuses on the CLQT MOCA SLUMS and ALFA tests the most but we have others.