Career Center

This position is located in the Speech Therapy Clinics within the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Services at the VHA WNY HCS, with duty at the Buffalo NY in Home Based Primary Care campus. The duties and responsibilities are carried out within the medical center including all clinical and patient care areas involved with the service. The Speech-Language Pathologist applies a wide range of theories, principles, and methodologies of speech language pathology to a wide range of populations. The Staff Speech-Language Pathologist duties include, but is not limited to: The speech-language pathologist at this level conducts, plans, and coordinates all clinical and administrative aspects of a full range of services associated with contemporary speech-language pathology practice. The incumbent is responsible for independent diagnostic assessment and evaluation of cases that are referred to Speech-Language Pathology without limitation as to difficulty or complexity. The incumbent will be responsible to conduct interviews with the patients and appropriate family members and/or friends, selects, administers and interprets the diagnostic test necessary to detect and evaluate any type of speech, language, voice, fluency, cognitive, and/or swallowing disorders. The incumbent is responsible for the adequacy of assessment and for the reporting of the findings to other professional workers with whom he/she or other members of the Speech Language Pathology service may cooperate in formulating diagnostic and clinical judgments; assesses patient condition from close observation and consultation with other members of the inter-disciplinary health care team; and utilizing all diagnostic and evaluative procedures and techniques consistent with contemporary speech-language pathology practice. Incumbent is responsible for planning, conducting, coordinating, and monitoring the effectiveness and clinical outcomes of patient-centered treatment and rehabilitative services to maximize and restore to the greatest extent possible physical and social functioning. The incumbent is responsible for the administration of a full range tests of speech, language, voice, fluency, and cognition including modal level and variation of vocal pitch and loudness; variability of the rate of vocal utterance; frequency and complexity of speech disfluency; consistency and adaptation of disfluency in sustained or repeated speaking and aural reading; phonetic analysis of speech designed to identify and evaluate patterns of misarticulation, such as distortions and omissions of sounds, as well as phonemic substitutions, including patterns of variation and speech sound articulation; and identification of phonetic and semantic factors related to this variation. The incumbent develops an effective and comprehensive plan of care for swallowing disorders in collaboration with other health care practitioners; establishes and maintains an effective therapy relationship with the patient, family and caregivers; and adjusts treatment plan to patient response and indicators of progress. Incumbent serves as a consultant to other facility personnel involving the most difficult and complex cases and is a recognized subject matter expert on matters related to speech, language voice, fluency, cognitive, and swallowing disorders. Incumbent will complete all documentation in accordance with facility policy. The incumbent will remain current with new developments in speech-language pathology and will maintain professional competency by reading professional journals and engaging in continuing education activities and professional learning experiences and by communicating with other professionals in the profession and related professions. Communication is required by this position and the incumbent will be expected to attend regular staff meetings and inter-disciplinary health care team meeting as appropriate; review policies and procedures and attend in service training. The incumbent will assist in the supervising, mentoring, and precepting student trainees in speech-language pathology and maintaining liaisons with affiliated colleges and universities. He/she may also provide instruction to residents and interns who seek information relation to speech-language pathology practice. The incumbent may perform ancillary assignments, including program management duties on an occasional basis, where the complexity and amount of the work is not substantial. The incumbent is responsible for patient scheduling, assessment, goal setting, patient education, treatment implementation and discharge planning for patients referred to speech therapy. The caseload is comprised of inpatients, outpatients and home-based patients with a marked diversity of physical and cognitive dysfunction. The incumbent may complete assessment and treatment on patients in the speech therapy clinical area, in patient rooms of the medical center or in the home or in assisted living facilities. The incumbent must demonstrate professional knowledge of, and skill in applying a wide range of theories, principles and methodologies for the practice of speech-language pathology to a wide range of populations. The incumbent is an independent licensed practitioner. Work Schedule (Part-time): Monday through Friday, 8:00am to 12:00pm Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Title/Functional Statement #:Speech Pathologist/PD23996F Financial Disclosure Report: Not required