What is
your job, how do people understand your job?
Actually,
people don’t really know what we are, doctors as well as patients/clients… we
also don’t know how to call the people who come to our hearing aid center
people, customers, patients or clients. An audiologist is not a doctor, our
studies last 3 years, however, we are paramedical.
I could
also consider our job as being a sales man. But we don’t only sell products; we
sell the service that goes with it, the maintenance. This is very important
because we are not like opticians that sell a pair of glasses and once the pair
is sold well “bye bye” until the next time the client comes and buys another
pair. We accompany our patient/client in the whole process. First we make him
go through a series of free hearing tests, this can go up to one month of
testing because the person has to be convinced and believe in how better his
life will be with the product and service. To begin with, the client will come
twice a month to make sure his hearing aid is working and is helping his day to
day life. Then we recommend they come every three months just for a convenient
check up. This is why I said before that we are not only sales men but believe
in the long term relationship with the patient/client. It’s like if a person
breaks his leg, once he takes the plaster of,, he isn’t going to start running
right behind ;-).
Which
reasons made you want to be an audiologist, what are your motivations and
challenges?
I like
contact with old people. I like helping people, because being an audiologist
isn’t only selling a hearing aid and doing maintenance. The first objective
which is also an issue is to make the patient/client understand why he needs a
hearing aid, understand how things are now and how worst they can get if we do
not take care of it and how it could make their lives easier.
You must
understand that when you put a hearing aid on a person he will not recuperate
the hearing loss, it contributes and re-level the hearing loss. “C’est plus une
ortaise autidive qu’une protaise auditive”
I also
appreciate contact with old people. For people of the war generation, it is
very hard to accept they are becoming death. Hence in the old times being death
meant you were going crazy “sourd dingue”. Some patients already told me “I’d
rather have a wooden leg than a hearing aid”, which demonstrates their anxiety
to being death.
The other
issue is that once the people have accepted to try hearing aids, the price
factor comes into account. It costs between 1500 and 2000€ to equip someone
with hearing aids. Sometimes this scares patients and it is difficult to
persuade them without pressuring them.
What is
your relation with brands, how do you coop with new products? Internet?
Well sales
representatives pamper us ;-). They come to our shops and advise us with the
new product launches. “Ils font bien leur travail”. I don’t to go
online.
How come
are tests free ?
Well when
you ask people to buy hearing aids which cost a large amount of money, you can
not blame them they don’t trust or believe everything you say. All audiologists
do free tests. It takes time for a
person to accommodate with hearing aids, they have to get used to them,
understand how they work, understand they will not hear as they used to when
they were young. The process is long and this is why we often see the client at
the beginning and like to be informed about the evolution.
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