This is the speech uncensored podcast your unflinching look into the vast scope of practice of medical speech and language pathologist, or as I like to call us neuro communication Pathologists who are also responsible for dysphasia. Anyway, I'm Lee Ann Porter. I love learning. I love our field and I love talking about it. Today's guest is thoughtful eloquent and has industrial laminators andHome, she's everything. I hope to be when I grow up. It is with absolute Delight that I interest introduce you to Megan bird owner and designer of therapy insights formerly known as SLP insights. Our topic today is focused on health literacy, which makes my little public health degree heart ever. So happy without further Ado. Let's meet Megan and get this show on the road.All right. Welcome Megan Berg. How are you doing? I am good lien. How are you? I'm wonderful. I'm really excited about our talk today because we're going deep into some like, oh no philosophical parts of our field, you know getting very theoretical and talking about really really big picture stuff. Yeah. Yeah, and I love podcasts. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I love your podcast and IListening to Joe Rogan interview Bernie Sanders the other day. Oh Joe Rogan made this comment about podcasts and how they're a long form method of communication and how like now we get so many little tidbits on social media or newsbytes, but we don't get to just sit down and have a conversation which is what's so great about podcast. So thank you for creating this space and thanks for having me on it's a delight. Well, thank you for your kind words. You're just like such an encourager. It's like everything's about you. You're never going to get rid of me because I'm cooking right? So Megan, what are your thoughts say something nice? Well Megan, you have a podcast now to don't you I do. I have three episodes on it, and it's called the therapy insights podcast and it is meant to fill the Gap like when I was in grad school. I did not have access to a counseling. Of course. So the podcast is all about interviewing people who are counselors or who have a bigger perspective on the Health Care system and filling that knowledge Gap need. Oh, that is so good. That is so important because we have to I mean, we see people with Progressive disease patterns. I mean, you know, they know we know everyone knows it's not going to get better. It's only going to get worse. Those are some hard conversations to have. Yes, and then Even outside of that when someone comes to see us, you know for adults. Anyway, they've had some kind of injury, you know, a stroke or a traumatic brain injury that's fundamentally shifted how they interact and their whole life and their role in life and that's a hard conversation to have and they need a lot of assistance with coping. So thank you for doing that. Well, Alright, so before we get way more into it because I will just keep asking question after question. Can you tell everyone a little bit about yourself who you are what you do and your background? Yeah, so I am a speech pathologist in Missoula Montana, which is Western Montana close to Idaho close to Washington and I came a little bit late to the field of Speech Pathology. I had a different career before I went back to grad. Cool. So before I became an SLP, I worked with Scientists around the world to synthesize and communicate their research goals and objectives and progress and outcomes. And that was a really incredible experience for me because I got to travel all over the world and work with people from lots of different countries and create and develop materials and lots of different languages all trying to Target some very esoteric scientific Concepts and so I moved around quite a bit and had ended up in Boulder Colorado and I was working for a science research group there and I got to the point where I felt like that was kind of the end of that journey and I was looking for a new challenge and I perused the University of Colorado grad school options on their website and I came across Speech Pathology and I I've never heard of it. I didn't know anyone that was a speech pathologist, but I loved the idea of it and I think I loved it because it combined my background of science, but also added in this human connection element that I think I was missing and what was wanting so I started taking classes while I was working just to see if I liked it and ended up getting into the program and my first job was working. With kids and that's partly because I did one of my internships at the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in South Dakota. And I love that experience. It was a totally different challenge for me, but definitely fell in love with those kids and the reservation and that experience but then I ended up moving to Montana and there was a job opportunity open to work with adults and that's kind of where I'd always seen myself. So I took that job and Missoula is kind of unique and I think it's like a lot of rural places in the United States where there's not a ton of access to health care. So if somebody does get into a situation where they need acute Medical Care and then they are moving on from that and going into rehab the family then has to make a choice if they're going to relocate for a while to Salt Lake or Denver or Seattle. Or if they're going to choose to do rehabilitation in one of the skilled nursing facilities, that's local. So I think in that sense like it's been a really great job for me because I get to work in long-term care, but then we also have a pretty big Post Acute patient population. So that's where I get to spend the majority of my time. And then when I started working with adults, one of my biggest challenges was Finding materials and resources for them that were not designed for kids. Preach this better. And I think there's been like this explosion of material development in the last five years, which is awesome. Yeah, and I'm glad that I've gotten to be a part of it. So I started developing handouts. And again this kind of goes back to my experience as a scientific Communicator educator and just really bringing visual elements to the patient education experience. So, Just like describing what dysphasia is and providing a very clear visual for people or breaking down the difference between Aphasia and apraxia of speech for families. And initially. I started the company was called SLP insights and gave away everything for free and then realized the cost of the development and web hosting and web development of that. So then I started charging and that led To the development of therapy fix which is a monthly subscription service. So we have four different flavors of therapy fix. There's one for Pediatric slps and that one is really designed for slps working with kids in clinical settings. So it has a lot of materials for feeding and swallowing as well because that was a gap that people had identified as needing more resources and then we have an OT version and a pee ET version and a medical adult rehab SLP version and that one is broken down into three categories speech language and voice and dysphasia and cognitive linguistic So within those three categories every month, we design and print a handout for each category and intervention and a resource and then we also do article summaries. Of recent articles that have been published within each of those categories and we have a sticker and quote and we have monthly calendars for people with low vision and weekly calendars for people with memory impairments. So the whole idea is with therapy fix people get a fresh batch of materials in the mail each month and then it comes with a digital download code. So then they can download all the PDFs and then keep printing them as needed for their clinical practice. And this so then the name changed from SLT insights to therapy insights and part of that was because we were starting to create materials for OTS and PTs based on requests. But I think the name change also reflects the direction that we're headed in in the values that we have in the sense that I think that and like maybe somebody can explain that. There's like a legitimate reason for this but I've never understood how like in our learning Institutions we have SLP OT and PT or frequently in different colleges and we don't take classes together and there's not a lot of collaboration within that learning environment and then we're thrown into the real world together and we've kind of missed the opportunity to learn how to effectively collaborate and so we're trying to learn it in the field. And some of my hope is that they would be insights becomes more of a platform for that interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion. And I think that like the healthcare world is changing so drastically and so fast and we have you know, these major shifts coming up next week with the patient driven payment model and Medicare changing everything and then other insurance companies are going to follow from that and I think that it's an opportunity for All of us to stand together and be a unified voice for strong ethics and morals and really creating an environment where we value patient care and we also have a place to work that is not expecting unrealistic levels of productivity. So yeah. Yeah. Yes all the yes. All right Megan. I just wanted to point out Just for kicks and Giggles that we have a really fun. Feature in common that we only discovered about ourselves. This is so Random like how many other Americans like studied abroad and you also got a degree from the University of otago. Right? Right. So how did you end up at otago? So University of otago is in Dunedin New Zealand and I went to the campus that's up in Wellington, and I want to see their Medical Campus. Because I got a amazing opportunity through Rotary International as one of their ambassadorial Scholars. Wow study at the Masters level for a year where I earned my post graduate diploma in public health. Wow, that's amazing. I didn't do it in a place like New Zealand where I mean, sometimes I feel like it's because of the fact that they have 4 million people and it's easier to manage, but they really have this Health Care System. They had just have a totally different and unique. Of on it. So that must have been fascinating. Oh, yeah as part of the requirements for the scholarship. I needed to travel around and be a speaker at other rotary clubs, which was absolutely a pleasure. Like there's nothing more fun than getting up in front and front of a group of people in my mind and talking about because the topic was about me it was a blast but I would share as part of my presentation. I would share some of the things that I learned about new. Ellen just you know by moving there and living there for the year and they were just some random fun facts just meant to be entertaining but one of them was their Health Care system, and I remember every now and then a rotarian would come up to me afterwards and be you know what Express their discontent meant with their system and it's like it's just a reminder that there is no way to please everybody like someone will find something that they don't like like about it and Yeah need to share that right. Great. Yeah, there is no Universal one-size-fits-all solution for sure. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, fun fact University of otago. So that's happening because that's about the say like go insert mascot, but not oh my gosh. I feel like I should know this. I know I don't pop quiz and we But that would like what 15 years ago for me go my god. Well, I was there in 2007 Cricket me too. What whoa, maybe we totally crossed paths and didn't even know it. That's why I'll that's hilarious we propose. All right, we've got to get this show back on track. Okay. Alright. Thank you for that. Awesome introduction about therapy insights and how it's more of How It's grown what it's doing right now the purpose behind it because that's a really good segue into today's topic just primarily on health literacy. So again what when we say health literacy, what does that mean to you? So my understanding in my concept of hell? literacy has definitely morphed a lot and transformed and I think that goes along with just our cultural understanding of it and There's an article that you're going to reference in the show notes, and that's kind of going to be the structure for how we talked about health literacy today and we're going to break it down into these three categories and talk about each of them in those categories are functional interactive and critical. And I think that as the Healthcare System evolves and as we as clinicians and as patients evolved, I think we're working more towards that critical level of health literacy. But if we start at just the functional level this is just the very basic understanding of our own health and it's the kind of understanding that lets us make decisions about her health. So for example, I was in my kitchen last week and I was cutting onions and I got distracted because I always get distracted and I set the knife down on the edge of the counter and of course it started falling and of course instead of letting it fall. I reached out and grabbed it. In managed to slice my thumb open. Oh, right what so but like my knowledge of wounds and open wounds and knife Cuts led me to be able to put pressure on it and then go and get stitches. Right? Like that's the basic level of functional health literacy is just knowing what to do with our own bodies when we know that information in the options in front of us and I I loved the conversation that you had with Will was it with Will Farnham about replacing a language of fear. Mhm, and you guys were talking specifically about dysplasia, but I think this could apply to anything when we're talking about this functional health literacy is our role is not to provide information that's going to sway somebody one way or another but just to give them the information so they can make the best decision for themselves. That is my jam and that's why I went to the University of otago. In study public health because I felt like if you empowered people with education with knowledge, they could make informed decisions for their own health care. You don't need to be told what to do or how to do it. It's like if you smoke the chances of getting lung cancer are exponentially higher if that's something you're okay with smoke away. Yeah. It's like if someone's like, oh, well heck. No, I don't want to get lung cancer. I don't even want a chance of that. Because of smoking I choose not to smoke. Well, then there you are. You're empowered to make health related decisions based on information that's been provided to you. Absolutely and another example that I like is like we have this therapy task that walks people through counting carbohydrates to manage diabetes and the task starts off with just learning how to read a nutrition label learning what carbohydrates are and then going Through a series of mathematical equations that are based on their own body type and their own preferences and they ultimately reach a point where they are able to know how many carbohydrates they can consume per day that will not have a drastic effect on their blood sugar levels. And one thing that's interesting about like when I do this with people it's often the first time that they've gotten to sit down and look at this information and learn this information and I think part of that is because was quite often when somebody's diagnosed with diabetes or they're having a diabetic situation. It's a very acute situation and the focus in the healthcare system is to get them stabilized and then maybe The dietitian isn't in the building at that exact moment, or maybe they leave the building before they're able to get all this education. And so there's kind of that missed opportunity. But with this task, it's the first time that they're really understanding that a carbohydrate is a complex sugar. And then this impacts their diabetes and that they have a choice in what they eat and they can look through all their favorite foods and figure out which ones are the best for them. So that's just another example of being able to be given information and make decisions that are personally relevant and meaningful to them. Yeah. I think that's a great example while you are describing that another one that came to mind was education about reflux or GERD gastroesophageal. Esophageal reflux or LPR orange or pharyngeal reflex? And you know, there's that common information out there about oh you need to cut out tomatoes and acidic foods and things like that. And then I got a hold of some information that then I adapted for some patient handouts that explained. Why what about those Foods led to that recommendation and it wasn't that tomatoes for example, cause It was that they irritate the esophageal lining and if you're experiencing reflux, then yourself and you'll lining is already compromised its needs to heal. But if you continue eating high levels of you know, citric and tomato Foods, then you're not allowing yourself to this time to heal if it's if the reflex is being managed by medications effectively, so that's what I share with people. I'm like, these are the reasons why they're recommending You know coffee it's not the caffeine in it. It's this other complex chemical name that relaxes the lower esophageal sphincter. So it was like if you are a die-hard coffee person or chocolate because it's the same chemical that's in chocolate and in coffee. Wow, then I was like, please choose or you know, make your own decisions. It might not be the best idea to drink coffee or eat chocolate after lunchtime because Then you're more likely to be in a reclining position. And if you're lower esophageal sphincter is already relaxed from the food that you've eaten then that's just going to cause more reflux. So if you're going to eat chocolate, eat it for breakfast friend like yeah, and it's that explaining the why behind and then just letting it sit and letting it be and letting their reality just gel with whatever they want it to be. Yeah. So it's not saying swear off chocolate and coffee for the rest of your life. It's like understand what the consequences might be before you engage in that decision. And if you know that and you're okay with the consequences, that's you. That's all you that's cool. So in New Zealand, do they have He's a well maybe we'll get to this. This is more like a critical level of health literacy. But are they making policy choices based on people's Health Care decisions kind of like in the United States were starting to see different health insurance plans based on tobacco use or no tobacco use. Do you know if that's something that they're doing? Well, I feel like a large. And this was like 15 years ago, you know 2007 if I can do my math right now, I'm really scared. I didn't do my math right now. No, wait, what's it now? Oh God. I'm going to be so confused. If I don't get a calculator and fix that. Okay. So the main thing was about access to health care and how that there is there was a most likely still is unequal Access to Health Care. Based on multitude of factors obviously socio-economic standards are access to that as well and cultural influences and other things of that nature. And so that was kind of it. Okay. I remember also what stood out to me because I found that really interesting and really powerful. So I don't know if that answered your question or not. Well, I mean, so okay, so that's functional health literacy. And then if we move on to the next level, mhm that is interactive health literacy and that is where like we give the information and then there's some sort of interactive element to it. So maybe we describe why somebody is having memory problems after a brain injury. And then we also say this is a brain injury support group that meets on Is for breakfast and then kind of helping them figure out a way to get there. So that's just taking the knowledge and and putting it up to the next level by allowing people to have opportunities to interact with this information and learn and decide things on their own. Well, yeah, I like that. Yeah, and then the third level of health literacy that we're going to talk about is what this article. First to as critical health literacy in this is probably the type that I'm the most excited about and why I was asking you that question about policy and this is the level where we're starting to integrate all of this information about The Human Experience and maybe make policy decisions around it or create a Health Care System that's going to better help people make decisions. So the other part of this that I think is super exciting is this concept of the learning Health System. And it's kind of a difficult concept to talk about because it's not really anything tangible. It's not like an institution or a lab or a central organization, but it's more this concept that we have the potential to tap into the expanse of The Human Experience and like as of up till now we've been relying on data points that are generally deuced by researchers and very controlled studies But if we think about this in the sense of like life before the internet and life after the internet, like I'm of an age where I remember both of those and they're completely different worlds. And I think that's what the health literacy are the learning health system is going to do for healthcare. So if we can think about it as like it's the energy inside all of us and it's the potential to capture data. The from real people going through real situations and taking all of that messy data and all those messy story lines and finding patterns in them. And I think this is especially attractive to me and I think to a lot of speech therapist because we are such a young field and we have such a limited amount of evidence for anything right now that it's really hard to know what's working and what's not working and you could take take any intervention in our field and find evidence to support it and evidence that maybe it doesn't work as much as we thought it does or so the idea that we could take like for example neuromuscular electrical stimulation for swallowing. You could find evidence in the literature both ways, right? Yes, what if we then try to document and tried to capture? Data points from all over the world of actual people going through the experience and maybe some some of them had an mes as an intervention and some of them didn't and we could start to get a better picture of reality based on all of these data points and I think when we talk about into a new crowdsourcing research right now, is that what's happening would be like if you imagine what Kickstarter did for small businesses, that's what we could do for research. Search so think about like if we had a Kickstarter for research and somebody put up a project aside. We want to know more about enemies and I as a clinician could donate $10 to that cause and that ten dollars would go towards the effort of building, you know, the webpage that allowed clinicians to upload data and paid the clip the clinical researcher to structure those questions and to structure that data collection in a way that's meaningful. And then over a period of five or ten years. If you have enough people submitting to that website within that structured setting then you're going to start to tease apart with actually going on in the real world. So I think it's really exciting. Yeah, cuz I I wonder like it kind of makes me think that you're pulling in a lot more of what people call antidotal evidence like things that they've experienced in the clinic or in their treatment courses with patience. And because that's a lot of the back and forth that I'll see on Facebook groups to is, you know, somebody will say, oh, you know new research article is published and it's telling us we should not be doing x y z right and then somebody may may or may not pipe up. And say well I've been busy for x amount of time and I've had really good report, right and then these conversations don't really get us anywhere. I think they just create a lot of scarcity a lot of division a lot of frustration and it's I think it is frustrating because we are trained to think that we have the answers or at least that's how I was trained and then to realize as that we don't it's a scary place and and like I loved what Megan something said about like the knowledge that we have is like a recipe and like you eventually become a chef and you incorporate lots of different flavors into what you're doing. And I think that that perspective is so much more enriching than is it right. Is it wrong? is this person doing it the way that we all think it should be done like like the human body The Human Experience is so vastly different from one person to the next and I don't think we ever will have all the answers and that's the exciting part and I think if we shift from this scarcity to abundance we can see that we have an abundance of curiosity and abundance of collaboration and abundance of opportunity and It's of growing knowledge like there is no right or wrong way and it's really exciting. It is exciting. You have a really good way with words Megan. I could just sit here and listen to you and not my head all day all day. I'm down with that. I feel like need to be on Ted. I feel like you just have the perfect Cadence for 10 talking. Did you pick up any phrases in New Zealand? Like I got the guy got people super confused when I kept using the phrase like she'll be right and they're like, who's she like she'll who were you talking about? Well, it's like they have this way of ending phrases in the word as a s. I'm like good at. Oh, yeah, and I'm like good as what Like finish that statement for me, please waiting for people to finish talking and I'm like you haven't finished a sentence walking Tire thought patterns now, I don't understand. But I love New Zealand, so please don't come after me. I love you guys. That was actually part of my rotary talked to was out. I had such a hard time understanding people when they were talking to me and I was like, I thought we'd pulled spoke English, but you don't and I mean to crash and kiwi he's coming. Oh, so I spent a good hour in a lecture before I figured out what type of cancer they were talking about. Oh because they pronounce a certain word so different from I was expecting uh, I was really lost in that lecture for an hour until I finally saw it written and I was like, oh, is that what they're talking about? No saying for Michael cancer cervical cancer. I have cancer I think mispronouncing survival cancer. And what is that and finally cervical cervical cancer? I was so dear. This is gonna be a rough year. Yeah, we had this big meeting in Tallahassee with a group of scientists. And there was a group that came in from New Zealand and somebody got it in their head that they wanted to go to the pawn shop and I think it was slight, you know, there's a little bit of like this weirdness of Americana that you can just go into a store and look at guns and other weird things so they kept talking about the pawn shop and then we get there and all the new zealanders are like, oh my God like that is not what we thought you were talking about. And they were expecting walking into a building full of filthy magazines. And oh, yeah, I'm shop hilarious. Okay, Megan and other crazy sack you said Tallahassee. Uh-huh. That's where I was born and raised what that's a great place. I know isn't it wonderful. Yeah, a Tallahassee capital of Florida delightful place to live and then move from yeah. Okay. I like how our lives keep paralleling. That's very good for me. All right. So are we good with learning Health Systems. Do you feel like you have Covered that yeah. Yeah. The only thing I would say is that it's just a it's a very like intangible concept and I think it's just going to start with little pockets here and there and it's going to grow and it's going to change things in ways that we can't even imagine right now. I really appreciate how comfortable you are with intangible Concepts because they really bother me. I remember in high school my professor in my language class saying, you know treating language and I think this was a pediatric class for language treating language is like nailing Jello to a tree what that's impossible. Why would you fool semester this way? Goodness, and he was not wrong. He was not wrong. So I really appreciate concrete things. And I think that's why I'm like why am I some of my favorite aspects of the medical field are voice and swallowing because they have Imaging that goes along with the assessment and treatment options. And so there's so much they can be so much more concrete concrete then other things that we work on like Ian Yeah, still trying to figure that one out. So which topic shall we tackle next? Mmm? Let's see. Are we are we talking about SLP diversity Coronel? Do we dare? Yes, let's go and let's go. So I think like you came across this concept on Facebook when somebody had posted a Blog article that she had written about her experience as an underrepresented person entering the field of Speech Pathology. Is that right? Yes. Okay. So I had a few experiences that led me to start the SLP diversity core, which I will say that I started that in. A of 2018 I think and the feedback I got on it was pretty mixed. And so I haven't done a whole lot with it just because I don't know if we're ready to tackle this yet. But like I said, I had this different career before it became a speech pathologist and I remember going into the information session that they had at the University. Just to like get a feel for what this was all about. And I remember walking into the room and I just had this feeling that I was in the wrong place and there was there was just not a lot of diversity there and I think because I had come from working with so many different types of people from all walks of life that it was just an odd experience for me and then I was in that the Asha conference in Denver in 2015. And I went to the the keynote was there to my secret CI by were like sitting right next to each other and we didn't even know it is this sorry to interrupt? I think I went I didn't go with anybody. I knew so I was just sitting there by myself and a couple of the board of directors from a she gave up and they were kind of doing this big rally about diversity and how diverse a show was and I again, I just had this feeling of like am I in the right place? Like am I missing something? Like what is happening here? Like this is not a diverse room, and it's okay that it's not a diverse room. I just it's like this weird juxtaposition that's happening where we're talking than its diverse, but it's not and that was really confusing to me. And so These things sort of led me to think about diversity and what it means and for me personally and I can only speak about my own personal perspective. But what I've learned is that when we have a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences and perspectives, we generally are better able to solve complex problems just by the sheer simple fact that we have lots of different perspectives that are Being to the possible pool of solutions. And so I started SLP diversity core with the idea that you could become a member and membership is totally free. But membership comes with a responsibility and that responsibility is giving a five to ten minute talk once per year to an introductory college class or like a high school class and the idea behind that is just to spread awareness that Speech Pathology actually. Wrists because I didn't know about it till I was well in my 20s and I think that a lot of people just don't know about it. And then if they do get into it, you know, maybe they're experiencing that they just don't fit into that world or what's typically expected to be the type of person that fits into that world. And so they don't pursue it. So I think if we can just broaden the number of people that you even know about it we can then inadvertently increase the diversity with the Point being that we need people to solve big problems. Like if they were really young field. We have a lot of questions that need to be answered and we need lots of different people to try to answer those questions. Yeah, I'll do continue. But when I saw it when I posted this, I got a mixed reaction and I would say that there was a very public reaction and then a private reaction and so I got a lot of emails from people who are you know underrepresented in her field thanking me for creating the site and having the conversation and they felt like We were not able to say anything but then I got a very public reaction mostly on social media that basically communicated that we maybe didn't need diversity just for diversity sake and kind of questioning like what why are we even having this conversation? So that's kind of why I've left it alone, but I'm curious to see if people are still interested in. Building the SLT diversity core and having it grow and really getting out there and doing these presentations and inviting lots of different people to be a part of speech pathology. Yeah, I definitely think we need more perspectives a broader experience base to draw off of that will direct future research will direct how we learn and how we can provide efficient treatment to the variety of patients that and clients that we treat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I like put the cat out of the bag? Can I like yeah example, whatever I think feedback that you got ya so it's about encouraging more men to become slps. Yes, and that was some of the backlash was like, why do we need to share this field with them from it's like the one thing we have like I what's ironic is that I can see both sides of that perspective like it's like Some precious like let's make it ours. Let's make it powerful. But at the same time I mean Hello, I don't just treat women like I treat men to and mo use that word powerful and I think that is such an interesting concept of itself. So when we think about power, I think a lot of people think that power is finite and like if I have power then this this other person cannot have power or if I give my power away then I lose. As power whereas I think the reality is that when we see Power is infinite we are able to drop these barriers and drop these arbitrary lines that were drawing and realize that it's just like the more people that are empowered the more powerful. We will all be and maybe that's a little whoo, but like I just I don't think that coveting power and keeping it to ourselves is going to take us down. a really great Road Now I think you're absolutely on point. There was a very fantastic insightful man who said a threat to Justice anywhere is wait. Oh gosh, I'm gonna mess good comment. I just I don't have the smoothness at all afraid to Justice anywhere weight as a threat to Justice everywhere. It was on the right track if he's lost my mojo. So yeah, that was the doctor Reverend Martin Luther King jr. So Yeah, pretty smart man. Very excitable. Yeah, and not somebody who is saying this group needs power. And now this other group needs to have less power like that was not his message at all. And is it affects everybody? Yeah. So that's how I took that okay, cool. Yeah, oh, you know what? It's that feeling of like how you were talking about power. It's that also that feeling of somehow being threatened. And so I do a lot of work to recognize when I'm feeling threatened and why to realize that maybe there is no foundation for that fear is that it's unfounded feet that's making me feel threatened. And right did that I need that in my life. I've got other things that help partner and then like if we all kind of Koreans like what does it feel like or how do we react when we feel threatened? Like we're defensive or territorial we're coveting that power like it. There's nothing good that comes from that feeling. But if we were able to drop that thought then we're all just people with lots of different things to offer. So yeah was valid perspectives valid points of view valid thoughts. You know, when you share them they should they should be accepted as what they are. They're your thoughts your perspectives and they're valid. They're not any more important or less important or Yeah. Anyway, I feel like we just go on and on and on and on and on we could get real navel-gazing. But you know, I like to get concrete and get actionable. So we're gonna Circle this wagon back around. The last kind of bullet point you had was talking about problem solving. Did you want to dive into that at all or because we're nearing our wrap-up time, but we got about five minutes. So it's up to you Megan. Yeah, I mean when we think about problem solving in our community of Speech Pathology, I think that health literacy and diversity feed directly into that. And so I think the more that we can Embrace new ways. Solving problems Embrace different communities of people that can help us solve those problems the more that we can collaborate the more that we can interact the more that we can get creative about collecting stories collecting data and seeing reality in the midst of all of that like there is such an exciting amount of Adventure in journey ahead of all of us in this field. So I just think it's really exciting. I do too. I do too and it's not going to be an easy path. Like right change and growth is challenging and doesn't always bring out the best in people and I can speak personally. It does not bring out the best in me. I'm very direct experiences that with that these last couple months and I've been learning a lot and not liking everything. I've been learning about myself, but hey. Hey, there, we are but what a great what a great place to be and that's what I love about your podcast is that you're just you're asking the questions you're being open and you're learning new things and I think that inspires me to stop and say it like, oh, well, what don't I know and what could I learn and that's just such a great energy to have so thank you. Good. Thanks. Yeah, I'm really passionate about learning and recognizing my own faults and limitations I think and so I want Empower other people to know that they can do the same. I'm not saying you need to get your faults. That's just something I'm obsessive with like I don't need that on anybody else but just like it's okay not to know or is it like it's not only okay to be curious. But like that's what we need is curiosity and to let go of the need to know everything all the time because we don't have a question. And you go out there searching for the answer and you find that there is not an answer to that question. You might be the person who has to make that answer right who has to create research problem who has to, you know, find out a way to get the answer and put it out there for everybody else. Yeah how exciting right? Whoo-hoo who's all like jacked up on Mountain Dew now, right? Let's get excited and go out there and change the world. I really feel like filter my thoughts. Sometimes it's not don't never do that. All right Megan. This has been an absolute blast. I can't wait to chat with you more and the future and find out other ways. In other times that our lives have crossed. Yes for sure. I'm sure they are there right? We'll sit down and talk it out and figure it all out. All right, Megan. Thank you so so much. Thank you for the work that you do in providing these visually appealing and super helpful. Health literacy forms, I mean, that's basically I feel like that's what they're be insides is its kind of focused on health literacy, like equipping us to equip, you know, the people that we come in contact with and the therapy world and Rehab world to start taking ownership over the information and the choices that they make. Yeah for their health. You nailed it. Thank you Lillian. Thank you Megan. Megan provided excellent links to read the article we discussed in the show notes on speech uncensored.com and she's so modest. She didn't even send the link for her thriving business there be insights. So I added that one too so that if you wanted to you could click through and explore the site and see what she's up to if you're not already a subscriber and okay just a little side note. I finally did the math with a calculator and it's been 12 years since Megan and I attended the Kubo tago not 15 and thank goodness. Because 15 years just sounds like a really long time. So yeah. Anyway moving on next week's guest is Kelly's AR rifa who will be joining me to talk about PRN life in the skilled nursing environment a little while ago. I had a listener reach out and ask to expand upon episode 7 from season one that was with Jen Hurst where we talked about working solely as a PRN SLP. And so Kelly's episode will be focused on living that PR in life, but on the sniff setting what that's like how to be prepared and have materials when you go to work at a place that doesn't really necessarily have materials and other fun facts that Kelly's going to be sharing with us. So there you have it listener requested Lee and delivered. That's how we roll. All right. Well, let's put this baby to bed and wrap it up here. My parting thoughts. I am so delighted that you've joined me today and I hope that you found today's episode informative and entertaining I'd be highly honored if you would leave a review on iTunes and tell me what's working for the podcast in the meantime keep nourishing your brain with all the amazing resources out there for us met slps and keep flourishing. You're awesome and I'll see you next week.
What is health literacy? How does health literacy improve outcomes? How do we incorporate health literacy into our everyday practice? We discuss how the therapeutic interaction is one of providing information and empowering a medical culture of respecting and valuing individual choices based both on a growing and evolving evidence base as well as personal values and priorities. We discuss the continuum of health literacy from functional (e.g., “Here is a handout on your condition.”) to interactive (e.g., “Here is the time and address to a support group in your area.”) to critical (e.g., “There is a clinical study gathering data about people who are experiencing your diagnosis. Would you like to participate?”). We also discuss how increasing diversity fosters a culture of innovation, collaboration, and a broader lens through which to view solutions to problems. To sum up, the future of rehabilitation therapy lies in building interdisciplinary connections from diverse communities that create critical health literacy opportunities (such as the Learning Health System) that allow us to bridge the gap between clinical research and clinical practice. 