DocMooreSLP

Earlier the year I took a leap of faith and applied for the ASHA Leadership Development Program. I am so glad that I took this leap. This program is AMAZING! Our Cohort’s journey started April 26th at the “mothership,” ASHA’s headquarters in Maryland. Our cohort was comprised of Speech-Language Pathologists and Audiologists across the United States. We even had a dual-certified Speech-Language Pathologist from Canada!  We came together for an extraordinary day-long lecture. In this lecture we dove into our individual emotional intelligence. We collaborated on areas of opportunity. Then we dove into our individual leadership projects.  The program will last for one year. Once of a month we will come together and meet via computer for webinars. We will also meet with our own teams that were determined at the kick-off day-program. As you can see from our team poster, my team is pretty incredible!   I’m so excited to grow my personal leadership skills. If you have

This past year has been such an exciting adventure in professional growth and development. When 2019 was nearing, I took the time to reflect on my professional aspirations. One of my goals was to start sharing my research findings from my dissertation. My dissertation chair encouraged me to submit my research to the Dysphagia Research Society (DRS) for their 2019 conference. That was goal #1. Goal #2 was submitting for an oral presentation at my annual state organization conference. I completed both applications and I was thrilled when my presentations were accepted at both conferences! My goal for this blog post is to talk about my personal experience in preparing and presenting research. The process of sharing your research can be intensive but it is truly an invaluable experience. There are two main types of presentations out there. An oral presentation which can last for a variety of times, 30 minutes, 1 hr, 2 hrs, 3 hrs, or full day institutes. Then there is a poster pr

Once upon a time, I wasn’t a Speech-Language Pathologist. Crazy right? My identify for so many years, has been that I am an SLP. But yes, before I went into the field I was actually a golfer. That was my identify for the majority of my life. My dad, Charlie Mahon, is a Class A PGA Golf Professional. My older brother, Charlie Mahon Jr., ran golf courses for most of his career and played for UMKC in college. My older sister, Courtney Mahon, she is now an LPGA Teaching Instructor and played for the University of Arkansas in college. My mom, our biggest cheerleader! I guess you can say I was born into a golfing family and it appeared that golf would be my destiny. I played golf throughout high school and then moved onto earning a scholarship to play for Missouri State University. I learned so many life lessons from playing golf. I learned how to be patient with myself and patient with others. I learned about ethics, being a good teammate, and how to work incredibly hard. I lea

Working as a Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP), you wouldn’t think that ergonomics would be something to consider in the job description. I’ve been working as an SLP for 7 years without any difficulty with workplace ergonomics. Or so I thought!   About 5-6 months ago I started having significant neck pain. At first, I chalked it up to sleeping on my neck wrong. But the pain was persisting and I started to feel it radiating down into my right elbow and hand. Two weeks went by and ibuprofen was just barley bringing down the pain. So it was off to my doctor! After a thorough evaluation my doctor prescribed three things to me. Hydrocodone, a muscle relaxer, and physical therapy. I was incredibly fortunate to work with some amazing physical therapists at the hospital I work at so I knew the right people to go to. During the assessment with my physical therapist, I almost cried just talking about the pain. Not because the pain was excruciating but because of how long an

At the start of 2019, I sat down and started to write out my goals. Oh boy, I made some pretty lofty goals for myself! One of them was to get back to writing consistently in this blog! As I started drafting this post, I decided to open up the blog and see how long ago it was since I last wrote. Guys, it was September of 2017! What in the world happened? Where did the time go?   Ha! I’ll tell you exactly where all of the time went…   To this little man right here! He is such a ham! 2017-2018 was a world-wind for my family! My son, Benjamin, turned one. He is now 19 months, can you believe it? But after he turned one we were hit with ear infection after ear infection. He eventually needed bilateral tubes which somewhat helped. He actually had his left tube replaced less then a month ago because it wouldn’t drain. Mama life is not for the faint of heart!   When I wasn’t spending all of my time with my little guy, I was finishing up my clinical doctorate! I gr

          This past May my husband and I welcomed our first born, Benjamin, into our family. We absolutely love this happy boy! During my maternity leave I learned so much about his personality, likes, and dislikes. Unfortunately, one of his dislikes happened to be tummy time! We struggled most days to get our 30 minutes in but we were able to do it through a lot of creativity.             As many of you early intervention speech-language pathologists know, tummy time is critical for infants to develop head control/strength, form proper head shape, and reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome. Since Benjamin was not a fan of tummy time, naturally as a new mom, I was terrified that his head wouldn’t form correctly, that he wouldn’t crawl, and of course of SIDS. So we pushed through some tearful events of tummy time. Eventually, we were able to find our own groove with tummy time. We used so many techniques to improve the experience of tummy time. We used mirrors, rattl