"Certificates... Do We Really Need 'Em?"

You do not need to pay for a certification course to become competent to perform FEES, MBS’s or other techniques. As I stated in my earlier post, you do need “Training, yes (does it need to be training by a specific entity, I would argue “not necessarily”). Sound and evidence based decision making capabilities, yes. The ability to produce an objective and defensible rationale for the proposed treatment, yes.”

Holding a piece of paper only means that the certificate holder attended a meeting. It does not convey competence or evidence based decision making. You state that you are not trained to perform FEES or MBS’s, but that training is possible without paying for a “certificate”.

True SLP’s pay to receive a certificate for certain kinds of training such as FEES (as you have cited). However many facilities “certify” clinician competence of SLP’s to perform FEES after they have performed 25 (or a specific number of) exams under supervision or other clinicians with more than that level of experience/competence. They do not have to pay for a piece of paper. Similarly, physicians that perform many surgical procedures do not necessarily receive a certificate stating they have attended a meeting to train them to perform the procedure. They learn from each other, in much the same way that we train and educate our students and supervisees.

Isn’t a clinician who is “certified” in lsvt qualified to train others to perform lsvt? If not, what would qualify him or her to train others? I attended a Jeri Logemann conference in 1987 and received a piece of paper, but was completely unqualified to perform the MBS procedure until I had received mentoring, experience and extensive training after the conference.

Cheers,

James L. Coyle, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, BRS-S
Assistant Professor, Communication Science and Disorders
University of Pittsburgh