Interview with Sandy Mintz M.S., CCC-A, Audiologist, Cochlear Implant Recipient, Consumer Services Supervisor

The Bionic Ear Association, Advanced Bionics Corporation

Beck: Good Morning Sandy. Thanks for spending a few moments with me today.

Mintz: Hi Doug. It's nice to meet you.

Beck: Sandy, you are in a rather unique position as an audiologist who wears a cochlear implant. Before we get to your experiences and observations as a cochlear implant wearer, I'd like to explore your audiology background, if that's OK?

Mintz: Sure. That's fine.

Beck: Where did you go to school?

Mintz: I went to Indiana University at Bloomington for my undergraduate degree in Speech and Hearing Science. After that I earned my master's degree at the University of Arizona at Tucson. That was back in 1984 so I've been an audiologist for 20 years.

Beck: Sandy, when did you first notice your hearing loss?

Mintz: My hearing loss was first detected when I was 6 years old. It was actually a school screening that picked it up. It was a "notch" at 1000 Hz in just one ear originally, but my hearing fluctuated and my hearing levels changed substantially over time.

Beck: How old were you when you started wearing hearing aids?

Mintz: I started wearing a hearing aid as a senior in high school at age 17. However, when I go back and look at my audiograms, I should've been wearing them since age ten! I started with an ITE in the better ear and then a few years later I was fitted for binaural BTEs, which I wore regularly from about age 20 until February, 2004, when I got my cochlear implant.

Beck: When you were applying to graduate schools, were the professionals around you encouraging or discouraging regarding your chosen career?

Mintz: That's a very interesting question. It was my mom that actually encouraged me to look into audiology and in retrospect, she was absolutely right! But back then, the challenges and listening demands of an audiologist were seen by some professionals in the field as prohibitive for a hearing impaired person to function adequately in clinical audiology. As my mom and I were investigating audiology as a career for me, we actually received some very discouraging comments from audiology professionals regarding whether a hearing impaired person could function successfully as an audiologist, and she grew concerned that she had led me down a career path I could not do with my hearing loss. Then we contacted a very special person whom we had never met, but who had provided tremendous support to me and my family over my early college years as we started to realize the severity and implications of my fluctuant progressive hearing loss. That person was Chuck Berlin. He not only told me and my family that this is in fact a career in which I could be successful despite my hearing loss, but he also felt the audiology profession was in great need of people like me who were hearing impaired. I finally got to meet him at my first ASHA conference I attended as an audiologist. Here I am 20 years later, still an audiologist in the midst of a very demanding yet successful career, and now wearing a cochlear implant! I would like to take this opportunity to extend a special thank you to Dr. Berlin! We helped pave the way for many other hearing impaired folks that have chosen to make audiology their career!

Beck: Can you tell us a little about practicing as an audiologist while wearing hearing aids, and now a cochlear implant?

Mintz: Yes, well...I think as a hearing impaired person I have and can continue to offer some real advantages clinically to my patients. Of course it is great fun being able to try all the technology first hand! But the biggest advantage is, I live with it too! And I've been through it with all degrees of hearing loss from moderate, to severe, and now profound. When I counsel patients about hearing loss, it's based on first hand knowledge about maximizing audition while wearing amplification, overcoming obstacles, encountering successes and failures, and experiencing the full realm of emotions. I can truly empathize and this enables a bond with the patient that extends beyond the typical clinician/client relationship. I recall the first time I told a patient that I too, was hearing impaired, and that I wore hearing aids. He connected with me immediately, and I could tell it was a major relief for him to be dealing with someone who had experienced the situation personally and had "conquered" it, and I could see that it gave him hope for the future. Recently, after receiving my cochlear implant I began a job outside of clinical audiology working directly with hearing impaired individuals in the realm of cochlear implantation, which has allowed me to further strengthen this advantage of living it first hand. As we all know, when you have an issue, a physical problem, hearing loss etc, it's very comforting to relate to others that have been through it successfully, and I can offer that.

Beck: Yes, I agree, the one-on-one shared experience is very powerful, very motivating and very important in counseling, and of course other situations too.

Mintz: Another plus was that for many years, I was able to test new models and hearing aid circuits and assistive technology by wearing them in my daily life, and that allowed me to evaluate the benefits and limitations of the new high tech devices as they came along. About the only limitation imposed by my hearing loss as a clinical audiologist was when conducting listening checks on hearing aids. Early in my career when my hearing was better, I was able to just tube the patient's hearing aid to my earmold and do fast and efficient biological checks. But as my hearing progressed, I became unable to really hear and differentiate the subtle amplification characteristics by listening alone.

Beck: I've done about ten million listening checks too, and that sometimes embarrasses me, because I know that listening checks are not accurate, and that many of the really important parameters and intermittent problems, compression points and true distortion numbers are not forthcoming when I listen to the hearing aids through a stethoscope! Were you able to get around that?

Mintz: Certainly not by listening! I feel strongly that if you really want to test the hearing aid accurately, an electronic analysis is the way to go. I relied heavily on electroacoustic data obtained through detailed analysis in a hearing aid test box. But that would not be unique to me as a hearing impaired audiologist.

Beck: Agreed. OK, so what was it that made you decide to get a cochlear implant?

Mintz: Hum...In retrospect things are always more clear and I can now see that I waited longer than I needed to. I was faculty within a university speech and hearing department. I was working in the clinic and in the midst of a renowned cochlear implant research lab, as well as teaching rehabilitative audiology classes. So I knew a great deal and spoke to patients about cochlear implants. But I didn't internalize it and never thought about it really for me. Then again, I never thought my hearing loss would progress to such a profound degree, but then one day...there I was, profoundly hearing impaired.

Beck: And someone suggested the idea to you?

Mintz: Yes, and at first, I was actually a little insulted as I thought I had done really well with hearing aids for my degree of hearing loss, of course as a supplement to my speech reading skills. But as I considered cochlear implantation over the course of a few years, I began to realize that I could no longer downplay my hearing struggles as my frustrations were having a big impact on me socially and emotionally. I could no longer use the voice telephone routinely and my reliance on TTY and relay services were increasingly inconvenient. I was straining to hear in one-to-one conversations and I was unable to really participate in even small group discussions without assistive technology. Eventually, I was avoiding social situations altogether. Things were at a crossroads, and I was having a hard time accepting myself as a deaf person. I came to grips with the fact that I needed to make a change one direction or the other, and that is when the cochlear implant started to make more sense for me. I know now, though, that a cochlear implant does not need to be a last resort. I could have benefited from the technology years earlier.

Beck: And when did you start at Advanced Bionics?

Mintz: I started in May 2004, not long after receiving my cochlear implant! I had done quite a bit of research to decide which implant I wanted, and eventually I decided on the technology offered by Advanced Bionics. Before I had the surgery, a colleague mentioned that a position opened up at Advanced Bionics that seemed well suited to me. I interviewed and was qualified for the job even before getting the implant, but I remained unsure whether I was ready to leave academia. But early on as I was learning to hear with my cochlear implant, my personal experiences drove my desire to become more focused professionally. I am thankful I was offered the job as it is a perfect fit for me, and it has been great to join the Advanced Bionics family both personally and professionally.

My position here is "Consumer Services Supervisor" within the Bionic Ear Association, which is the support division within Advanced Bionics. My role, with help from the rest of the BEA team, is to provide information, education, guidance and support to candidates and users of our cochlear implant technology. This is done in quite a variety of ways, including personal interactions with individuals and their families as well as within group environments. One main responsibility of mine is the coordination of our volunteer network, which is such a fun responsibility to have! The volunteers are from all across the U.S. and Canada and all use or their child uses cochlear implants. The volunteers serve as mentors to candidates and those new to or in any way needing help with cochlear implants, and they also help us to educate others about the wonders of today's technology. They are very important to people with hearing loss because they extend their compassion having lived with hearing loss and also their passion for the technology, and can convey through their own experiences the dramatic quality of life improvements cochlear implants can offer people with severe or profound hearing loss.

Beck: With your audiology and hearing aid background, and your personal experience with cochlear implants....you seem like a natural! I should also mention that as we're conducting this interview, you're in California, and I am in Texas, and we're using a standard voice phone....and you have not asked for a single repeat. You are doing amazingly well.

Mintz: Thanks, it really is amazing technology! I feel like I have achieved a terrific result and am functioning well beyond my original expectations.

Beck: What can you tell me about how the sound changed over the first few weeks after the initial stimulation/tune-up?

Mintz: My experience was similar to many others in the beginning stages of the journey to hearing with a cochlear implant. The moment when I was first turned on with live speech, I was immediately filled with regret, feeling I had made a terrible mistake! But I stuck with it and for good reason! Early on I heard sounds, but they made little sense...everything just sounded like beeps, "wah-wah-wah" and other weird noises that were registering, but it wasn't like words or the sounds I once knew. And then very soon after that voices and speech started to materialize and I began to experience the joys of hearing again. One of the most memorable experiences for me was after only a few days I was able to have a conversation with my dad over the phone for the first time in 20 years! Within a few weeks, the sound quality was really good and the words became very clear, clearer than I ever remembered with my hearing aids. The ultimate result is different for everyone, but it would be hard to find a cochlear implant user that didn't benefit from the technology in one way or another. For me, I am now able to hold conversations in the car while I am driving, enjoy music and radio programs, use any telephone anytime, and approach any interactive social and vocational situation with the confidence I had lost so many years before...it has really been a fantastic experience! It is so hard to describe all the emotions encountered when given the chance to hear after being profoundly hearing impaired.

Beck: Sandy, it's a real joy to speak with you and share your story. Thanks for your time this morning.

Mintz: Thank you too, Doug. It's been a lot of fun for me too. I encourage any interested readers to contact me and I'd be happy to help them as best I can.

Beck: And the best way to get you is probably via e-mail?

Mintz: Yes, they can write to me at hear@advancedbionics.com.

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