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From: Ed Feuer
Date: 10/11/03
Time: 8:49:39 PM
Remote Name: 142.161.180.27
Ellen Marie, You said: I don't advocate the speech therapist serving as coordinator of a "team" because: 1) The consumer can do this himself/herself more efficiently from a time and cost basis and benefits immeasurably from doing so and 2) In many instances, it may not be necessary for the "team" members to communicate with one another (if we are talking about "team" from a medical model standpoint).
In no other field where a multidisciplinary team is used in treatment is the client expected to go out and recruit the members of the team.
For example, the treatment of epilepsy. I did a "Google" on multidisciplinary team approach and the first thing that came up was the multidisciplinary team treating epilepsy at the department of neurology at Wayne State University’s Detroit Medical Centre at: http://www.med.wayne.edu/neurology/ClinicalPrograms/Epilepsy/multi.html
"The program provides comprehensive epilepsy care through the activities of a dedicated multidisciplinary team that includes four adult neurologists/epileptologists, one pediatric neurologist/epileptologist, one adult neurosurgeon, one pediatric neurosurgeon, adult and pediatric neuropsychologists, adult and pediatric epilepsy nurse coordinators, neuroradiologists, and psychiatrists. Highly trained EEG technologists, epilepsy nurses, and social workers complete the epilepsy program’s team."
I am sure the patient didn't go out and recruit and educate the team members. It is just more efficient that such a role fall to the team coordinator who has formally studied stuttering and is humble enough to admit that he/she and speech-language pathology lack the necessary tools, time and knowledge. As well, be assured that in the epilepsy example, the team members are talking to each other in order that their relevant expertise be used efficiently and so that no one is trying to reinvent the wheel.
With stuttering, professional jealousies are a real barrier. Some members of the other fields with relevant expertise probably place SLPs lower in the pecking order. Van Riper told me once contacted the late Hans Selye, the renowned stress expert, with a view to get him interested in stuttering. Selye, in effect, told him off, saying: You do your work, I'll do mine.
So certainly it isn't easy but it is my hope that some progressive, idealistic SLPs will persevere in an attempt to create such a collaborative team for the benefit of their stuttering clients.