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<\/p>\nShauna Dool is a student in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences pursuing a Doctor of Audiology (AuD) degree. She will soon enter active duty in the Army and will be the\u00a0first student in the program\u2019s history to do so.<\/p>\n
Dool said she is grateful for the division\u2019s ability to help her balance schoolwork and Army duties. For example, when she donated a kidney to a fellow Army member at the end of her first year, the division happily rearranged her exams.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe faculty bend over backwards to ensure the students meet their needs and goals,\u201d said Dool.<\/p>\n
The most fulfilling part of her journey throughout the program, Dool said, was the bond she formed with her classmates.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s been the most rewarding part, meeting people from all over. You come out the other end and they\u2019re basically your family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nine years ago, Dool joined the Army Reserves while living in Portland, Oregon. In 2014, she came to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, upon enrolling in the division\u2019s doctoral program.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got into it by accident,\u201d Dool said. She had taken linguistics courses as an undergraduate, one of which was a speech pathology course. The class\u2019 elements of audiology piqued her interest, and when the Army sent her to Egypt to learn Arabic a few years later, she had found her passion.<\/p>\n
She hopes to carry this passion to her upcoming externship at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where she will complete her fourth and final year of the doctoral program as a first lieutenant and an Army audiologist.<\/p>\n
Dool will primarily provide vestibular rehabilitation to active duty soldiers and their families. She also takes great interest hearing conservation, which she describes as educating soldiers on the dangers of loud noises.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see veterans in their 50s and 60s that could have been protected if they had known about it when they were younger,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just hearing conservation education that she would like to see improve; Dool wants increased education informing veterans as to the services that are available for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clinics at UNC do a really good job of that,\u201d Dool said. \u201cIf a veteran comes in, they\u2019ll counsel them and tell them to go to the VA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dool plans to continue working with the military population well after her externship at Walter Reed, as she will serve three years of active duty and foresees staying in the Army for at least 20 years.<\/p>\n
She said she owes much of her success to the division and hopes future students of the program find the fulfillment she did.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet to know all the certain parts of audiology,\u201d she advises students. \u201cYou might be surprised that what you\u2019re interested in wasn\u2019t what you thought you\u2019d be interested in when you started.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shauna Dool is a student in the Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences pursuing a Doctor of Audiology (AuD) degree. She will soon enter active duty in the Army and will be the\u00a0first student in the program\u2019s history to do so. Dool said she is grateful for the division\u2019s ability to help her balance schoolwork … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62935,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"layout":"","cellInformation":"","apiCallInformation":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","odd"],"acf":[],"featured_image":false,"featured_image_medium":false,"featured_image_medium_large":false,"featured_image_large":false,"featured_image_thumbnail":false,"featured_image_alt":false,"category_details":[{"name":"Uncategorized","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/category\/uncategorized\/"}],"tag_details":[],"_links_to":[],"_links_to_target":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62935"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/healthsciences\/sphs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}