Sam Atcherson: It's All About the Right Solutions & Support

Announcer: Welcome to Episode 21 of empowEAR Audiology with Dr. Carrie Spangler.
[00:00:16] Carrie Spangler: Welcome to the empowEAR Audiology Podcast, which is part of the 3C Digital Media Network. My name is Dr. Carrie Spangler, and I am your host. I am a passionate audiologist with a lifelong journey of living with hearing challenges in this vibrant hearing world. This podcast is for professionals, parents, individuals, with your own challenges and those who want to be inspired.
[00:00:44] Thank you for listening, and I hope you will subscribe, invite others to listen and leave me a positive review. I also wanted to invite all of you to visit and engage in the conversation on the empowEAR Audiology Facebook group. Transcripts for each episode can be found at www. 3, the number three, C digital media network.com under the empowEAR podcast tab.
[00:01:18] Now let's get started with today's episode. Let's get started with today's episode of empowEAR Audiology. Today I am looking forward to interviewing a colleague, friend and a cochlear implant mentor. Let me tell you about today's guest. Dr. Sam Atcherson. Dr. Atchersonis a bilateral cochlear implant user, and a long time user of hearing aids.
[00:01:46] He received his bachelor's and master's degree in communication, sciences, and disorders from the university of Georgia and his doctorate in audiology and speech pathology at the university of Memphis. He is currently professor of audiology at the University of Arkansas for medical sciences. He has given over 200 presentations at local, regional and international levels.
[00:02:13] And he is an author. or a coauthor, of over 50 peer reviewed articles, 22 books, chapters, and three books, his research and clinical areas of interest include face mask related to speech perception and acoustics, auditory electrophysiology, audiologic rehab, and health literacy. He serves on the board of directors for the accreditation commission, but audiology education.
[00:02:45] And then the board of trustees as vice president for the Arkansas School for the Deaf and Blind and Visually Impaired. He is the co-founder of the Association of Audiologists with Hearing Loss, a former president of the Association of Medical Professionals with Hearing Loss and one of the original founding board members of the Arkansas Hands and Voices Chapter.
[00:03:12] Today, I'm not only excited to learn more about Dr. Atcherson’s research and study, but I'm also looking forward to hearing his journey, um, from hearing aids, the cochlear implant. And I'm so excited because by storytelling, we really can share it and empower others who may be on that hearing journey.
[00:03:34] So welcome. Dr. Atcherson. Thank you for being on this podcast.
[00:03:40] Sam Atcherson: Thank you, Carrie. Please call me Sam. We are friends. We are colleagues. Um, and it's weird to hear my bio, but, um, I'm proud of it. Um, I wouldn't be where I am without, um, audiologists and speech pathologists and my, uh, childhood and upbringing. So anyway, I'm so glad to be here.
[00:04:03] Yes.
[00:04:03] Carrie Spangler: Well, thank you, Sam. I'm so excited for you to be here too. And I was just trying to think, we've known each other for a while.
[00:04:10] Sam Atcherson: We have. And I was racking my brain, trying to figure out when we actually first met. And I still don't even know that cause really cross paths so many times. Um, but since you had mentioned in my bio, um, the association of audiologist with hearing loss, um, I do remember.
[00:04:36] Treading a round table request for audiologists hearing loss. I think there's sort of back in 2001 and you probably came to one of those very early on, and that was probably my first introduction to you. Um, but you, you ended up being one of those rising stars too. And so we've been able to do this.
[00:05:01] Follow each other's trajectory. Um, and we've gone on to do some great things.
[00:05:07] Carrie Spangler: Yeah. I know I was thinking about that too. And I have specific memories of, um, I think Clarke means steam. We were both there and you were the, I think the keynote at that point in time and I was helping with the teen program.
[00:05:26] And you ended up coming over and spending time with us and the teenagers, which was a really great experience too.
[00:05:35] Sam Atcherson: That was so fun. And, uh, I think there were a couple of other colleagues of ours. Um, wasn't there a physician with hearing loss too, and he was helping out. That was a great time. That was a great time.
[00:05:47] That was a
[00:05:47] Carrie Spangler: great time. It was so, yeah, I'm sure. Although moments will come, come through, um, as we have this conversation today, but, um, Sam, I would love for you to share with our listeners a little bit about your hearing journey growing up.
[00:06:05] Sam Atcherson: Oh, my, um, it is the question when people want to really get to know me.
[00:06:11] And I've tried to tell that story to my students. Um, it gives me a little bit of credibility if you will. Um, well, the story kind of goes, I was probably born with normal hearing. Um, as far as we know in my family, I am the only person, um, in our family tree going all the way back to my great, great grandparents on either side to have any kind of hearing loss like I have.
[00:06:44] Um, so the way my parents tell me I had a babysitter, her. Thought that I really wasn't responding to sounds in my environment. And so my parents recall just kind of blowing the babysitter off. They're like out now, he's a boy. He's hard headed. Listen anyway, but I don't know. One thing led to another and I think they started noticing it themselves.
[00:07:13] Um, my father was in the air force, so we went to an air force hospital. Has had an ENT look in my ears, didn't see any signs of infection or anything. So, yeah. That was the first referral to an audiologist. Um, and of course at my age, at the time, I think it was three and a half or four. I can't remember exactly from their story.
[00:07:38] Um, but they put me in a booth had headphones on yet. And they'd got minimum response levels that was skirting on a mild to moderate hearing loss. But again, I was just the better ear. Right. So. Um, as a typical audiologist would do, let's see you back in three months or six months or whatever. And they started seeing a pretty rapid progression.
[00:08:07] Um, I think it had dropped to about a moderate to severe hearing loss. By the time I was five or six, and then it just stabilized for a little while, but because of that time period, They very quickly enrolled me in a pre-K program with other deaf and hard of hearing kids. And that was the first time I had ever seen other kids with hearing aids and, uh, I noticed some of the other kids were wearing colorful ear molds.
[00:08:38] So I was like, I've got to get some too. And I think I had red, um, And what I was said also about that time period was I was in Denver, Colorado, and rehab relapse, some colleagues in Colorado and they led the country. In leading efforts in early intervention. Um, and so everything was taken care of in Denver, Colorado.
[00:09:04] I mean, I, I had itinerant teachers. I was in a special classroom and first and second grade with peers and also we're hearing aids and we were all oral. I don't think I was exposed to sign language until middle school. Um, But I'll tell you more about that in a little bit. Um, but anyway, so my time in Denver was great and then my father had to be stationed somewhere else.
[00:09:31] So we went to New Mexico and not trying to throw anybody under the bus or any state, but. The services in New Mexico, where I lived was not the same at all. And so we started seeing some, some difficulties in the classroom, anyway, so as I moved in various places, um, the thing that really changed my life and taught me self advocacy skills was when I ended up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
[00:10:07] I was there in um, eighth grade and ninth grade, sorry. From the time I left Denver to the time I was in New Hampshire and high school, I was in public school with very little services at all. I might've had a speech pathologist. I certainly went to audiologists for regular checkups, but no one was really keeping an eye on me.
[00:10:34] And it wasn't until I was in New Hampshire, that I was again, placed in a classroom for one hour at the end of the day. With other students with hearing loss, some signed, some were oral, and it was there that I learned how to read an audiogram for the first time there was there that I learned how to sign.
[00:10:58] And I discovered there was another way to get information. Um, and I joined a boy scout troop there that also had deaf. Children. Um, and so, oh, and I, I learned how to use a TTY. I was just exposed to things that I have never been exposed to up until that point. And that really helped to set the stage for my future.
[00:11:28] I'll just share one more thing about my childhood. Living in New Hampshire really helped me to identify who I was and who I could be, but I have to give credit to my grandparents. I lived with them in sixth grade and seventh grade in Maryland. And during that time, my grandparents taught me the value of hard work.
[00:11:55] They taught me to pay attention to school and academics. Um, they fought with the board of education to make sure that I was placed, um, and, and an appropriate classroom setting. Um, I got my own personal FM system at that time. So, um, that. That period of my life is what helped me do better in school and pay more attention and take pride in my work.
[00:12:26] And then I got the self-advocacy skills in high school and that's just carried me through.
[00:12:34] Carrie Spangler: Wow. That's great. Like, and just some of the things you said, I just like making my wheels turn right now. I mean, you know, you start out in Denver with like basically the great, you know, spread of all kinds of services.
[00:12:50] And then to know that. From one place to another. It's so vastly different. And, um, and unless parent, so empowered with information. And thankfully you started in Denver, so that at least you had an idea or your family had an idea of what they could ask for what you should be getting, because if you would've started in New Mexico, your parents may have never known that.
[00:13:20] You should have had any of these types of support.
[00:13:24] Sam Atcherson: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:13:26] Carrie Spangler: So, yes, we have a lot of work to do in education, but I love the fact about the self advocacy, because I think that's a skill that we can start with kids when they're preschool. And it takes if the lifelong skill that kids and adults who are deaf and hard of hearing need to have.
[00:13:46] Um, and, but you did mention that you were in a class at the end of the day, for an hour with other peers who were deaf or hard of hearing. And how did that help you? How did the having other peers, any of the mentors for you,
[00:14:03] Sam Atcherson: or did that impact you in any way? Oh, my, uh, I spent a long time since I've thought about that, but this is what I was say.
[00:14:12] Um, we probably inspired each other for different reasons. For me though, personally, I felt. Alone and isolated, you know, in all these years of school, without other peers with hearing loss, I really felt like no one understood what life was like for me. And then suddenly I'm with peers that are the same age, we're all teenagers.
[00:14:43] We're kind of going through this, you know, personality development, trying to figure out who we are. And it was really cool for me to see. Otherwise, well adjusted deaf and hard of hearing kids. Um, Being good at what they do. I think it gave me some self-esteem that I didn't have. It gave me a little bit of courage, um, uh, learning sign language at the time.
[00:15:15] I don't use sign language as, as my primary means of communication, but I've used it socially. I use it to work with patients if I have to, but learning sign language opened my world. Socially, at least at that point in my life. Um, um, I'm grateful for it. I'm absolutely grateful for it. Um, part of the isolation and feeling lonely was I didn't get the side conversations that other kids were having.
[00:15:51] That was no longer an issue. Um, when I was around my deaf and hard of hearing peers. Um, so that was great. They were just really great.
[00:16:00] Carrie Spangler: Yeah. I know. I w most of our kids are in the mainstream and they don't have those opportunities to meet others. And I know from my own experience, you know, Karen MacGiver-Lux, uh, she was like the first person I haven't met with.
[00:16:18] You know, who was wearing hearing aids at the time. And I went to, and she was going to college and I was starting college. And I thought that was such a pivot point in my life where I was like, oh, there's someone else like me out there. It was like, like what you said, that kind of self-esteem. And, you know, having someone that.
[00:16:40] Was relatable to you in the same situation, so that it's important to have those peers. And we still do. We have a
[00:16:49] Sam Atcherson: whole network. I keep collecting them. It's like Pokemons. I'm just like, oh, this person, this person. And. Yeah. I no longer feel alone. Yeah. Yes.
[00:17:01] Carrie Spangler: So, and I just have to say, and it kind of gets to my next question about your cochlear implant, but you were like one of my, um, messenger audiologist with cochlear implants and my group texts when I was pursuing that path just a short time ago.
[00:17:21] But what, at what point did you pursue that cochlear implant?
[00:17:27] Sam Atcherson: Oh, my, um, So let me backtrack a little bit. So when I was in my master's program, I was wearing hearing aids very successfully. Um, this formal instruction was getting a little more difficult because at that point I think I had a severe to profound hearing loss, but I was doing well.
[00:17:57] By anyone's standards. And so no one ever pushed, no one ever pushed me or encouraged me to get a cochlear implant. Um, and then somewhere close to the end of my master's program. My great aunt who, who passed away a few years ago, she lived in San Pedro, California. Um, right outside of Los Angeles, she attended.
[00:18:26] Some kind of a workshop and they were talking about cochlear implant technology, and they were talking about the research that was coming out of House Ear Institute. And she was so inspired by this technology that she have never heard of before that she called my grandfather, told him my grandfather called my dad, told him, then my dad called me.
[00:18:55] And says, Hey, Sam, your aunt called your granddad, your granddad called man, I'm calling you, have you ever heard of a cochlear implant? And I'm like, yes, dad, I'm in graduate school. I've learned about cochlear implants, but we're still talking 20 years ago or more. And I said, you know, dad, I'm just kind of at this point where if my hearing goes.
[00:19:23] It goes, I know, sign language, I belong to a deaf and hard of hearing community. I might still be able to function as an audiologist, just in a different capacity hours, like ready to go deaf if I'd had to. And I could just hear figuratively my dad's heart break. What I didn't consider in that moment was so what.
[00:19:52] I can communicate with people in the deaf community. What I was effectively doing was cutting off my family. It just did not register in my brain at that moment. And so there was probably weeks or months after that, that I finally started thinking, well, I don't need a cochlear implant right now, but I'll cross that bridge if something changes.
[00:20:24] So fast forward to my first year in my PhD program, I went straight from the master's program, right into the PhD program. My hearing started to change. The content. Uh, uh, of my PhD courses was getting harder. I was having difficulty understanding some of my professors. So I started mentioning about the cochlear implant again, and with that hours, like what the heck?
[00:21:00] Why not just go and do a cochlear implant evaluation. See what they say? And we'll make some decisions as a family. What I didn't know at the time was that my aunt was willing to write the check for the entire surgery. Hmm. Wow. And I saw her, right. It. Hmm. Um, she really, truly gave me the gift of hearing back in 2001.
[00:21:33] And. To honor her. I went all the way to Los Angeles, California to do the surgery. So she got to watch the whole thing. She was there when I woke up after surgery, she was there along with my dad when they activated the device for the first time. Um, I know I wouldn't be where I am right now, as far as I've gone without the implant.
[00:22:01] And I'm not saying that. Everyone needs an implant I'm saying for me, it opened doors that I don't think I otherwise would have had. If I was just wearing hearing aids, I would have found a way to succeed no matter what, but this was life-changing for me. Wow.
[00:22:23] Carrie Spangler: That's so amazing about, you know, you get to.
[00:22:27] It was the, um, the coconut implants went covered at that point in time through insurance
[00:22:34] Sam Atcherson: while I was still in school. So I didn't have the kind of insurance that would have covered it. Right. Um,
[00:22:40] Carrie Spangler: basic level insurance
[00:22:42] Sam Atcherson: at that time. Um, before we move on, I want to share one other interesting story related to all of this.
[00:22:50] When I went and had my cochlear implant evaluation. It was there. They discovered that I had large vestibular aqueduct, but it saw my CT scan and course up until then we had no idea why I'd have hearing loss because no one else in my family had hearing loss. So it was kind of an interesting feeling and moment to go, oh, I now know what caused my hearing loss.
[00:23:22] I now know why there was progressive. I now know why. And he kind of rough sport that I did probably contributed to those changes in my hearing. I do remember getting hit in the back of the head when I was working, um, at big glass. Um, it's a, um, That's a big store, like a Walmart or something. So anyway
[00:23:46] Anyway, I was hanging up hammers and the, the wall buckled and all these hammers started dropping on my, I wasn't injured, but it did change my hearing. So when I got that news, I sent an email to my entire family and I said, I now know why I have hearing loss and guess what happens? My grandfather sent me an email back.
[00:24:18] This is hard.
[00:24:23] Wrote me an email saying that he was so relieved to know that that was the cause because when I was around three or four years of age, he came to visit me and my family. My parents went to work. My granddad was at home with me. I put on my Superman costume and I wanted to show my grandfather some tricks.
[00:24:53] So I'm jumping back and forth between two beds. My last step I misstepped and I hit my head really hard on the side post of the other bed. And it was right around that time that my hearing loss was diagnosed. My grandfather held for over 20 years, guilt that he had caused my hearing loss. He never told anyone else about it.
[00:25:23] Carrie Spangler: Wow. That's a lot hold on right?
[00:25:26] Sam Atcherson:
[00:25:33] Carrie Spangler: But I always feel like. I experiences as audiologists to, you know, have hearing life, like just your story right there, finding out during a cochlear implant process about EVA, I'm sure you have a patient that you would want. It'd be like, okay, we're getting an MRI. You need to get an MRI or, you know, like, not that you would prescribe that, but you would recommend that.
[00:26:00] Because just the things that our experienced that we went through, I think make us stronger. However, we also have this insight and intuition in us that says, Hey, maybe you should look further into this or that because of our own experiences.
[00:26:19] Sam Atcherson: I hope it makes me a better investigator, a better diagnostician, um, But most importantly, I think living with hearing loss has given me a sense of, uh, empathy, um, how I want to share about the whole person and not just what's on the audiogram, what I got from them in the booth.
[00:26:47] And I think that's something that good audiologists do anyway, whether you have hearing loss or not, we just need to be able to see the whole person. Yeah.
[00:26:58] Carrie Spangler: So kind of backing up a little bit. I know you said in grad school, and when you started your PhD is kind of when your hearing had dropped a little bit more for the, um, and you pursued that cochlear implant path, but how did you pursue the field of audiology?
[00:27:13] What got you started?
[00:27:18] Sam Atcherson: I'm laughing because. Right. So when I, when I was in high school, I got called into what I thought was going to be the principal's office. Well, actually it was a guidance counselor who wanted to talk to me. And so the guidance counselor noticed that I had a really high GPA and wondered if I had thought about college.
[00:27:43] I hadn't even thought about college. I was just so focused on graduating from high school and getting a job somewhere. So I bring that up because it was this guidance counselor that really got me thinking about higher ed to begin with, which meant. What do you want to major in? I don't know. Well, what are you good at?
[00:28:09] I'm good at art. I work in a restaurant with my mom. I'm good at cooking. I have good customer service stills. I'm like, I don’t know. So I ended up taking, uh, Uh, I don't know what they're called now, uh, of jobs. Oh, like a career inventory, their inventory. Right. And it says something about, um, health care. And so I chose.
[00:28:42] A field that I thought would allow me to be in healthcare, but not have to work with patients directly, or this is the extent of my knowledge. Okay. So it has nothing to do with any of the disciplines out there. They're all wonderful. But I was like, well, I don't want to be on the front lines working with patients.
[00:29:02] So I'm going to do pre medical technology. But I'm going to completely embarrass myself here because at the time I had no idea what that was. I just thought I'd be working with computers or doing something in the healthcare field. So I'm in college and that's my major. I'm taking all the biology, the chemistry, the human anatomy, I'm doing great and all of those things.
[00:29:30] And then I needed new hearing aids. So at that point, I was living with my mom to spend the last two years of high school with her. My parents divorced when I was seven. So I wanted to spend time with my mom before I became an adult. Um, so I go to an audiologist I had never seen before. Um, and his name is Richard Wright.
[00:29:58] He passed away to cancer probably about 10 years ago. So I miss him. But when I came in, my mom has sent him some of my old audiograms and he thought I was completely deaf and probably signed and he's freaking out thinking he needed to get an interpreter somewhere. And here I am, I show up and I'm talking.
[00:30:24] So he does the evaluation? My hearing hadn't changed much, but yes, I needed new hearing aids. Well, during the counseling session, he asked me, um, what I was majoring in, in college. So I said pre medical technology and gosh, oh, health care. That's cool. What do you think about audiology well I blew him off
[00:30:51] Because I was like, How am I going to be able to do the speech test? You know, that thing like he's like, well, we have speech materials on CDs. Now you don't even have to say those words yourself. And clearly you're a good lip reader. I still blew him off. Well, as year later, I go back for my annual checkup.
[00:31:16] See how my hearing aids are hearing. See if my, my hearing has changed and he had just hired a new audiologist and her name is Kim Carr, and I'm going to embarrass myself again. I thought she was the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen in my life. She asked me the same question. What do you think about audiology?
[00:31:41] Well, I didn't say yes right away. I said, well, that's what the other guy asked me last year. Why should I go into audiology? And so she was sneaky about this. What she did was she asked me if I would come and speak to parents of children with hearing loss. So I said, sure, what am I supposed to talk about?
[00:32:06] She said, just talk about your life and answer the questions that they have. And that was the pivotal point for me. I saw the difference that I could make in the lives of parents who have children with hearing loss. And so after that, My audiologist. Kim asked me if I get an application from the university of Georgia, would do you at least fill it out and send it in?
[00:32:37] I said, yes. Um, that's how the story begins. Wow.
[00:32:44] Carrie Spangler: That's awesome. It's always interesting to hear how I, you know, peeps, who I audiologists who have have grown up with hearing loss, how they kind of got navigated. Into the field. And my story is very similar. It was my audiologist who I was going for annual hearing test.
[00:33:06] So I'd, have you ever thought about audiology and I was undecided health. Major.
[00:33:16] Sam Atcherson: We have parallels too. I
[00:33:18] Carrie Spangler: know. Right? So it was, I had no idea. I don't think many people know what they want to do at age 17 or 18. And I did the same thing career inventory and and said, I might be good working with people. And so I chose.
[00:33:35] Health care as a, you know, more broad and a couple of years later, okay.
[00:33:42] Sam Atcherson: I'm going into audiology,
[00:33:48] Carrie Spangler: but kind of goes back to grad school. And once you got accepted, did you have any road blocks going, you know, getting through your graduate program or your Ph program or PhD program because of your hearing challenges?
[00:34:07] Sam Atcherson: Um, I did not. Other than what I was saying earlier. Um, the year prior to getting my cochlear implant, I did have struggles, but I also knew that the rehab period would probably be difficult.
[00:34:25] And so I spoke with my major advisor and, um, The advisory committee and they allowed me to go part time, not really part time, but I lowered the number of credits for a couple of semesters to let my brain catch up and do a lot of intensive rehab. And that was actually great. I still spent a lot of time in the lab, but I didn't have the demand of the coursework.
[00:34:54] Um, and once that was over that the thing that changed was. I went into a PhD program thinking I would never be able to practice clinical audiology again, after getting the cochlear implant, I ended up getting my license in audiology and started practicing. So that doors swung wide open for me. Um, I would say the only real road block I had was.
[00:35:26] Learning how to do audiology as a person with hearing loss. That's what got me thinking about our group. My next
[00:35:41] Carrie Spangler: question, into that. So, because of your own experiences, you started thinking about this group that you needed to get together. So can you share
[00:35:53] Sam Atcherson: a little bit more about that? Yes.
[00:35:55] Um, and if you're looking for anybody else to bring onto your podcast, um, you have to bring Suzanne Yoder into the mix and it's because, um, Around that time. ASHA someone had asked her and I wish I knew who it was. Um, but someone at ASHA had, um, contacted me about a student at the university of Pittsburgh with hearing loss and wondered if I would be willing to talk to her about what’s like and I'm sitting there going, I'm still in school, you know, but.
[00:36:34] Fascia already knew. I had just gotten a cochlear implant. It was in the ASHA leader. Um, you know, I had finished my master's degree and was now working on a research doctorate. And so I just thought that maybe I might be a good person for her to just bounce ideas off of, and Suzanne and I started emailing quite a bit and we realized that we had many of the same questions.
[00:36:59] How are we going to do speech audiometry. Um, how are we going to check hearing aids? Um, what, what happens if we don't understand what a patient says, what are some strategies that we can use to compensate for our own hearing loss and still be able to provide high quality services. And then we went to.
[00:37:25] One of the, uh, American academy of audiology meetings. And after that meeting, we realized how difficult it was for both of us just to attend the meeting. There was noise. There were people who were giving presentations and not repeating the question. So we had no idea what question was being asked by a member of the audience.
[00:37:50] We went to sessions. where the speakers would turn the lights off so we no longer could see face. I mean, it was just, so what did we do? We wrote article for audiology today called the Irony of Audiology. And I think AAA paid attention to some of that, that instead of us, um, Uh, sending a proposal every year for a round table.
[00:38:19] Yeah. They just said, Hey, did you need space this year? And so they've always created a space for us. Um, but they've provided, um, um, captioning, interpreters, uh, for that meeting specifically. And that's been great. And so from there, The group just grew, but we weren't just the association of audiologists with hearing loss from the get go.
[00:38:45] It was really more of a support group. Um, and what I was said has changed over the years is the people who came the first couple of years were really angry people. They came because they felt, I mean, we're talking 20 years ago, right? We had people come angry that they didn't get the support that they needed when they were in graduate school.
[00:39:13] Now talking about today, you don't hear that as much. Of course, every student is different. Every individual needs different things to be successful, but you don't hear that level of anger anymore. What you now see is all right. I'm having this problem. What solutions do you guys have? And we've just all jumped on that.
[00:39:38] We have a Facebook group page now for you to have a webpage. It probably needs some updating, but I, again, for the second time in my life, I don't feel alone, not as a person receiving loss and certainly not as an audiologist with hearing loss, there is no excuse anymore. I
[00:40:00] Carrie Spangler: know, and I, how many people right in that Face book group
[00:40:04] Sam Atcherson: group, um, This might've been a couple of years ago when I checked, I think they were like a hundred over a hundred people subscribed to it, and that could be unilateral, unilateral hearing losses.
[00:40:21] Bilateral hearing is. Um, cochlear implants. We might even have some people in there with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorders, um, some have private practices. Some are in universities, some are in hospitals. I mean, it's a very diverse script.
[00:40:40] Carrie Spangler: is, but I agree too, to have that support and to be able to mentor the younger, um, rising professionals, I think is important to you.
[00:40:53] And I think you, like you said, you've been contacted by other. Uh, professors at other universities who are kind of trying to help someone navigate. So how, how has that changed you? Can you share some experiences of being able to mentor those students?
[00:41:12] Sam Atcherson: Yeah, absolutely. And I won't, I won't name specific schools or students, but, um, you know, some schools for whatever reason might have more students with hearing loss than others.
[00:41:26] And it's typically the schools that don't get students as often when they start searching around for, for help. Um, they'll often find me. Or maybe Suzanne or the association of audiologists with hearing loss. But if they're, if they're already in an academic setting and they know that I'm in an academic setting that’swhen they're like, okay, I'm just going to go straight to the horse's mouth.
[00:41:52] Um, and so we started having conversations about how can I help my student in the classroom? What has worked, what hasn't worked. Um, how do you guys You know, provide funding for captioning or an interpreter? And I may not have all the answers for that, but I certainly can point them in the right direction.
[00:42:14] Um, but probably the single biggest question is how can I ensure the students will be successful when they go off campus? Yes. And I think probably the number one answer is you've got to teach that student how to advocate for themselves. And you're not in your head because you and I wrote an article on this very thing.
[00:42:41] Um, they've got to learn their skills in graduate school, or they're just going to flounder when they're. When they graduate and, and they're having to do this independently, so why not learn it now in graduate school and what I would consider a safe space? Um, yeah. Also during that time, you really should look closely at the technology that they're using and do they need to be making some changes like now that will set them up for success in the future.
[00:43:18] So those conversations can go. And a number of different directions, but ultimately, ultimately that comes down to how can I help my student be successful in the classroom and in the clinic? Yeah.
[00:43:35] Carrie Spangler: I agree with you a hundred percent, because I think a lot of students who decide to go into audiology, they grew up.
[00:43:44] Kind of like we did in a more mainstream setting. And I mean, you were lucky to have that advocacy support, but I wasn't. So I didn't know what to ask for. I mean, other than knowing I have a hearing loss, like you're learning along with you, classmates about audiology, except that you have, you know, personal experience, but.
[00:44:05] I agree that advocacy and being okay with sharing your story and what you need and how someone else can help you is really important. And the technology piece, a lot of those students haven't used a DM system or captioning or anything before. In fact, these are things that are going to really open up
[00:44:30] Sam Atcherson: doors for you.
[00:44:30] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So tell me
[00:44:36] Carrie Spangler: a little bit before we kind of wrap up today, I would love to hear a little bit about some of your PhD research and what your favorite part of research is right now.
[00:44:49] Sam Atcherson: Um, I'm laughing again because I spent five and a half years of my life learning everything about electrophysiology, you know?
[00:45:03] Um, I don't regret any of that training at all, because I think that training helped me understand the importance of plasticity in the brain. Okay. And. I knew that if I could at least learn that I could apply it to other areas of audiology. My mentor told me that part of going through PhD training is to prepare you to be an independent researcher, no matter what your topic area is.
[00:45:39] But certainly if you want to be an expert at a particular area, you have to do the time. Okay. So just because I switch from one thing to another, doesn't make me an expert at the next thing. You have to really get into the literature, learn what the problems are and try to be part of the solution.
[00:45:59] So I still dabble in electrophysiology a little bit. I'm fascinated by it, particularly with technology that works well and you see evidence of that change in the brain, but there. Other people that are far better suited to do that kind of research. But I certainly like to share that research with my patients, with my students.
[00:46:26] What I've been doing lately is I think I'm uniquely suited. As a scientist that can help people with hearing loss in a different way. Vocationally. Um, so you had mentioned in my bio that I've been part of the association of medical professionals with hearing loss, and these are. What I would consider very high caliber people with hearing loss who have gone above and beyond, and they are truly helping other people and their only obstacle hearing loss.
[00:47:08] So when I joined that organization, I was. Maybe one of two or three audiologists there, everyone else was like either a physician or a nurse or a dentist. Um, you name it. I very quickly learned one. Stethoscopes was a problem and two face masks were a problem. So very early on, I tried to see how I could.
[00:47:43] Assess study the use of stethoscopes. So, um, I started doing some recordings with conventional and amplified stethoscopes, and one of the most important things I've learned in my research is that hearing aids and cochlear implants because of the design and the size and shape of the loudspeaker and the microphone, they don't.
[00:48:12] Amplify low frequency signals very well, fast, problematic when you're trying to listen to some very low frequency heartbeats. Okay. So when I started sharing that information with my colleagues, they're like, well, that explains everything, you know, because no one else had explained that before. Um, and. And now we're starting to see some newer, um, amplified stethoscopes.
[00:48:45] They're certainly amplifying things better. They're saying, just take the implants off, take the hearing is off use headphones, which will boost the low frequencies. And you'll be able to hear everything was this. You hear everything including all the noise in the room too, because it's so sensitive. So, so I'm still trying to help.
[00:49:07] Um, solve some of barriers, um, uh, problems and answer questions about that. But because hearing is, and cochlear implant technology seems to be. Changing all the time and everyone wears different devices. It's really hard to tell any one person exactly what to do. So I have to deal with this on a case by case basis, and I've been able to help some people in that regard, the face mask stuff.
[00:49:41] I was doing this before. COVID 19. Okay. I simply wanted to find out, well, one. Does the use of face mask alone, distort speech to the point that we should be paying more attention to this? The very first study I did was, uh, uh, using dental office noise. Um, and we used the connected speech test as the material that our participants would have to repeat and the presence of dental office noise.
[00:50:19] We did normal hearing and we did moderate hearing loss and. And yes, noise was a problem for both of them, but to a greater degree for the individual with moderate hearing loss. And this was the, the non transparent or opaque mask. But what we didn't know was how it affected people with severe to profound hearing loss.
[00:50:42] So I did another study later and that study also incorporated the transparent mask too. And we saw that. Um, just to summarize it really quickly, um, the severe to profound listeners benefited from the transparent mask, um, and they were affected by the noise in a different way. But what I wasn't prepared for is that we had some participants who didn't wear hearing aids at all.
[00:51:13] And they weren't affected by the noise. So they were completely dependent on what they could see on the mouth. So they had 0% with the opaque mask, but with the transparent mask, they were getting like 20%. Correct. I was like, wow, that's really cool. So that led me to working with one of the inventors of a transparent mask, um, Genie Han.
[00:51:41] She invented the face view mask. And so we were able to get some NIH funding. So I did another study and I'm working on the results of that for publication. Um, but during COVID, since everyone was wearing the mask and. An article came out very early on. I think it was February saying that surgical mask and N 95 mask were lowering and distorting speech.
[00:52:13] I jumped on that because my question was, if that's what's happening to surgical mask and 95 mask, what's happening with the transparent mask. Matt, you have this other barrier in front of your lips. And so I was starting to see levels drop like 12, 20, 28 dB, if you will. And so one of the best ways that I've heard this being described as that, if you have normal hearing.
[00:52:49] And you're around people waving masks. It like, you have a mild hearing loss, but what if you have a moderate hearing loss, man, you just made that hearing loss even worse because of the presence of a mask. So that's what I've been working on these days. Um, and now that people are getting vaccinated and the restrictions are being relaxed in health care.
[00:53:18] Masks are not going away. So I'm going to continue this, this line of work. Um, and, and hopefully that helps because it all started with how can I help my colleagues and medicine and nursing and dentistry when they have to wear a mask and they'd have to communicate with their colleagues who were also wearing masks.
[00:53:42] Carrie Spangler: Right. No, it's such timely research obviously with our whole pandemic, but at the same time, like you said, there's always going to be situations where masks are going to be needed and to be able to have solutions for accommodations and support is really important as well. Not just, you know, your research is critical because it's going to give the facts and the bottom line of why we need to have certain accommodations in order to support our patients or our medical.
[00:54:15] You know, faculty and professionals as well, so
[00:54:20] Sam Atcherson: important similarly. So that's, that was the conclusion of the most recent paper that we had published. So what mask obscure muffle reduced the intensity of speech? We now have to think about solutions. So if you wearing them, what can we do to overcome that?
[00:54:40] So, absolutely. I agree with you.
[00:54:43] Carrie Spangler: So just to wrap up, this has been such a powerful great content conversation. Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you were like, oh, I hope Carrie asked me this on the podcast today.
[00:54:56] Sam Atcherson: Um, you know, as I was doing this podcast with you, I talked about my aunt and I've talked about my grandparents, but I also want to give a lot of credit to my mom and dad.
[00:55:08] Um, my mom and dad treated me as if I were any other kid. And I think that is so powerful. You know, I can say that my grandparents did this, my great aunt, the desk, but what my mom and dad did for me was because they didn't treat me any different than anyone else. It made me believe that I could survive in this world.
[00:55:39] And they provided the things that I needed. They provided the opportunities. Um, they continued to support me in any way that they can. But because they are not treating me any different, that just builds me up. And, and I hope that parents do that for their kids. Um, whether they have a hearing loss or not a disability or not a difference or not, but the role of parents is so important.
[00:56:11] And I, I really appreciate my mom and dad for that too. Um, other than that, Sometimes, I feel like my story, isn't all that unique. Um, because I I'm inspired by others, um, including your story too. Um, but we are living in a day and age where it doesn't have to be about I can't anymore. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right solutions and having the right support team behind you.
[00:56:44] Carrie Spangler: Yes. I agree. A hundred percent. Well, Sam, I am so glad that you were able to come on to the empowEAR audiology podcast. And I know that your story is going to inspire families, going to inspire adults who are on this journey and the professionals who are out there who need to hear. The story as well. So thanks again.
[00:57:08] And I'm going to have you, is there any way that people can get a hold of you if they have any questions and I can definitely link your information to the show notes of the podcast as well.
[00:57:20] Sam Atcherson: Absolutely. Feel free to give them my, um, you AMS email address. Okay. I will. I love people all around the world.
[00:57:30] Carrie Spangler: Well, good.
[00:57:31] Well, I just want to thank you again, and I want to thank all of our listeners for listening and tuning in to empowEAR Audiology. And if you like this, please, um, give a favorable rating and share this podcast with your friends and family and colleagues. So thanks again.
Thank you Carrie
[00:57:52] Announcer: This has been a production of the 3C Digital Media Network.