M.S. Communication Sciences & Disorders graduate students Daniela Jurado ’21 and Kimi Phippen ’21 got a big surprise last month! They were both recipients of OSHPD’s California Advanced Practice Healthcare Scholarship giving them $25,000 each for one year of school. Recipients of this prestigious and highly competitive scholarship agree to a 12-month service obligation practicing full time in a qualified facility that is in an underserved California location.

Although she is not sure which location she will be serving just yet, Kimi Phippen is crystal clear about what she hopes to achieve:

“One of my goals is to make the services within my scope of practice readily available to people living in rural areas. From my experience, there is a tendency for people from rural areas to ignore or hide their health problems, especially when it comes to cognition or communication. To ensure the community I serve has access to everything I can offer as an SLP, I plan to dedicate myself to advocacy and outreach. I want to make sure that not only are people in the community looking for help for treatable problems but also that other healthcare professionals are aware of the ways I may support their patients.”

 

Daniela Jurado had this to say:

“In the process of changing careers, I communicated with various professionals within healthcare and I realized that there was a big need for bilingual speech-language pathologists. Moreover, I realized that within certain communities, there is a lack of access and information regarding SLP services. I am extremely grateful to have been awarded the scholarship as it is supporting me in achieving my goals of being able to serve the geriatric population in a medical setting. I look forward to continuing to learn about this wonderful field and more importantly, I cannot wait to contribute to the Latinx SLP professional population which as of 2019 comprised only 6% of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) professional group.”

 

Congratulations to Kimi and Daniell!