Career Options
The new frontier of health careAs a speech language pathologist at Bridgepoint Health, Robbyn Draimin is working in the new frontier of medicine: helping people live well in spite of chronic illness or disability. She enjoys the satisfaction that comes from assisting patients learning to express themselves again after loss of speech. LINDA WHITE |
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 [ 2007-05-09 ] |
Speech language pathologist Robbyn Draimin offers some therapeutic support to her patient, Violet Burke, by showing her a model of a throat.
"CHANGE THE WORLD"
"It's about allowing people to connect with their emotional, spiritual and psycho-social sides," she says. "Our supervisor says, 'We want to change the world.' It's something we work toward, one patient at a time."
Draimin works with patients who've suffered speech disorders from any of a number of causes, including stroke, acquired brain injury and tumors. "I've always been fascinated with the brain and behaviours and love caring for these people when they are so vulnerable," she says.
"It's not all about speech," says Draimin, who completed a Masters in speech language pathology at the University of Western Ontario in London. "People can communicate through pictures or augmented devices. It's about giving people the tools to show their competency."
Janice Shewchuck, director of pharmacy, embraces the challenges that come with managing the distribution of medications throughout Bridgepoint. "I'm on floors, attending rounds with multi-disciplinary teams. There's a clinical component to my work: educating staff and patients and interacting with families in collaboration with the team. It is challenging, but it is good. You have to be accurate."
Shewchuck graduated from the University of Toronto's faculty of pharmacy and worked in a drugstore prior to landing a job at Bridgepoint 16 years ago.
"Because some patients have more than one condition, another challenge is optimizing the way they take medication, being mindful of interactions, and preparing them to go home," Shewchuck says.
As the greying of the baby boom generation continues and the average age of the population increases, more and more careers in health care will be dedicated to chronic disease and its prevention, reports Marian Walsh, president and CEO of Bridgepoint Health.
"This is the third -- or new frontier -- of modern health care," Walsh says.
"FIND THE CURE"
"At the turn of the 20th century, life expectancy was 40 years. People died young and fast from infectious and communicable diseases like smallpox and German measles. The first frontier of health care was building public health infrastructure ... and finding immunization and antibiotics," she says.
Walsh defines the middle of the 20th century as the "find a cure" frontier.
"People are now living with instead of dying from conditions and diseases. We haven't cured things like heart disease, kidney disease and cancer, but we have been successful at helping people live with them," Walsh says.
And that is having a huge impact on medical careers. "It's all about lifestyle and how people manage: the dietician, the pharmacist, the physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech language therapists working with patients," Walsh says. "I think there's huge opportunity to think not only about sickness, but professions on the leading edge of keeping well. That's the next frontier."
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