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Children's Hospital Boston is a world-renowned pediatric tertiary care medical center and is a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital.
The Diagnostic Audiology program at Children's Hospital Boston has mentored externs and fellows for 14 years straight. Past externs are now working at other pediatric hospitals around the country, working for manufacturers, and obtaining their PhD in Audiology/Hearing Science. The Director of Diagnostic Audiology is also a past extern of this program.
This externship is, at present, paid as a salaried employee, including healthcare and benefits. In the future, this position may become a stipended student position, but at this time, we do not anticipate a change in this policy.
Our patients come from all walks-of-life, local as well as international, typically-developing children to very medically complex neonates.
Externs/fellows are provided with supervision by an experienced pediatric audiologist. The externship occurs at our main campus in Boston.
Externs will be exposed to all aspects of pediatric audiological evaluation and case management, although the focus of the externship is enhancing diagnostic and case management skills.
According to the extern's abilities and with approval by the supervising audiologist, externs will progress from fundamentals of pediatric audiometric assessment to more advanced techniques of behavioral audiometry and electrophysiology.
A small percentage of our patient population includes adults with complex otologic presentation, and externs should anticipate occassionally providing diagnostic assessment to an adult patient.
It is expected that upon completion of the externship, the extern will be competent to provide detailed assessment and audiologic case management of complex pediatric patients.
It is expected that externs will be fully proficient in providing frequency-specific electrophysiological threshold assessments by the time their externship is finished.
This externship will exist within the Diagnostic Audiology program, and thus the focus is on providing the extern with a depth of skill development in the areas of diagnostics.
The Habilitative Audiology program (cochlear implant and hearing aid fitting) works directly with Diagnostic Audiology in case management, but the externship will not overlap. Externs will be exposed to providing assists in cochlear implant mappings, but will not provide direct mapping services.
As well, it is not anticipated that externs will regularly perform hearing aid fittings, with the exception of occasional loaner hearing aid fittings through our hearing aid loan program.
The philosophy of our program is that externs should be provided with expertise that will scaffold their abilities in case management, allowing them to pursue interests in habilitative audiology following their one-year experience.
To spread the experience across both Diagnostic and Habilitative Audiology would give the extern exposure in both areas without giving expertise in either.
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