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Audiologist Career Interview
Dr. Ellen Lafargue is the director of audiology and assistant executive director at the Center for Hearing and Communication, and she has been an audiologist for 27 years. She is also a member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Audiologist Career Path
Ellen first became interested in the subject of hearing loss because she had a distant relative who was born deaf. After learning more about deafness, she decided that audiology was the field for her.
Audiologist Experiences
Ellen earned her bachelor’s degree in speech and hearing sciences from the State University of New York at Geneseo and her master’s degree in communication sciences with a specialty in audiology from Hunter College in New York City.
She also earned her Doctor of Audiology (AuD) through a distance learning program from Salus University in Pennsylvania.
Ellen began working at the League for the Hard of Hearing (now the Center for Hearing and Communication) after earning her master’s degree. She has worked there for the past 27 years.
Audiologist Degree Programs
Audiologists need an AuD to enter the field, which is a requirement that changed in the last 5 years. Before then, you needed to obtain aspecialized master’s degree in audiology.
Audiologist Job Description
Ellen is the director of audiology at the Center for Hearing and Communication.
“That includes testing clients’ hearing, helping them select and fit them with hearing aids, counseling them about hearing loss and hearing issues, supervision of my staff, and supervising the hearing aid dispensary,” she explains.
Audiologist Daily Routine
An audiologist’s responsibilities really depend on where they work.
“Audiologists can work at speech/hearing centers like me,” Ellen says, “or they can work in physician offices, educational settings, in private practice or at universities.”
“At speech/hearing centers,” she continues, “audiologists see clients, both established and new ones, take histories, examine the clients, including providing referrals to other healthcare professionals if necessary, selecting hearing aids, counseling, use computers properly to ready the hearing aids, interact with physicians, and work the billing aspect of the job.”
“If you see children who have hearing loss, you also need to work with their families and schools to help them understand the problem,” she adds.
At the Center of Hearing and Communication, audiologists also have the opportunity to work in a mobile unit, providing hearing tests and information for the community.
Audiologist: Steps to Success
“You have to be a people person,” Ellen advises. “You have to interact with all different types of people, and you have to be able to communicate well with them, which includes getting past their problems with hearing loss.”
“You also have to be able to sort out a lot of information in the examination and hone in on what is important to make the right diagnosis,” she adds.
Audiologist Job Opportunities
Jobs for audiologists in the future has a clouded outcome, but Ellen believes the outcome to be bright.
“Because of healthcare and insurance issues, there are threats to us being able to provide clients with services,” she explains. “However, there is a growing need for audiologists because hearing loss is becoming more common. The ‘Baby Boomers’ are growing older, so audiologists are in more of a demand.”
Audiologist Favorite Aspect
“The interactions with clients and seeing the way that I can affect their lives on a daily basis by improving their lives through better hearing,” says Ellen.
Audiologist’s Future Ambitions
Ellen is satisfied with the job she has right now and hopes to keep it that way.
“The only thing that I would substitute would be to do some teaching in the future,” she adds, “but I would need to keep the client interaction because that is very important to me.”
Advice for Prospective Audiologists
“Have an open mind and keep learning,” Ellen advises. “Our field changes so quickly. Although the technical process of examinations has stayed the same, what we do now is very different from what I learned in graduate school. You still have to learn in order to have a long career that you enjoy.”
