Audiology Student: 'You're Really Helping People'

It didn’t take long for Ellie Servia AuD ’15 to encounter her first “real Alaska” moment.

A client came into the audiology clinic where she works seeing an consultation for a bone-anchored hearing aid after he had been mauled by a grizzly bear.

The man reportedly was building something in a rural part of the state and had to walk about a half mile to get supplies.

“He had a gun, bear spray and his dog, but when he came out of the building, there was a big grizzly bear, and it just attacked,” Servia said. “He played dead, rolled onto his stomach like you’re supposed to, and put his hands over the back of his neck.”

The bear tried to turn him over, and a claw cut through the middle of his ear, severing nerves. He suffered facial paralysis as well as hearing loss.

“But he’s sitting there telling the story and says, ‘You know, it was a young bear. It didn’t know better,’” Ellie recalled. “That was my welcome to Alaska.”

Servia, who grew up in Northern California, says she always wanted to live in Alaska, so the externship opportunity was too good to pass up.

After earning her bachelor’s degree, she was selling hearing aids — what she called an incredibly rewarding career.

“It can be an instant gratification job,” she said. “You fit a hearing aid and instantly improve someone’s quality of life.”

But though she was certified, she couldn’t work with pediatric patients or surgical devices without a doctorate in audiology.

“I did a Google search and found a brand new program was starting at Pacific, and off I went,” Servia said.

Pacific launched its School of Audiology in 2012, offering an accelerated three-year route to a doctor of audiology degree.

The program follows the successful example of Pacific’s School of Pharmacy, in which the three-year curriculum is delivered in an intense block model. Students study a single subject on a time, with topics building comprehensively on one another.

They get practical experience in Pacific’s new EarClinic, which serves hearing and balance needs of patients throughout the community.

“I like it. Instead of studying for three or four finals and writing a paper on the side, you’re getting really in-depth in one subject at a time, then you go into the clinic and apply what you learned,” Servia said.

The third year of the program is dedicated completely to an externship in an audiology clinic somewhere in the country. Some of Servia’s 19 peers are in Seattle, and another is in San Francisco. One is embarking on officer training in the U.S. Army and completing an internship at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Servia said she “lucked out” with her placement, which offers some unique attributes.

Most externships are one year long, ending at the student’s graduation. Servia, however, signed a two-year contract with Northern Hearing Services, so she will stay there even after graduating in the spring.

The audiologists she works with have three sites in Alaska, plus a specialty clinic on Kodiak Island. They take referral cases, Servia said, so every patient poses a challenge.

“Some days I think, ‘I just want someone with a straightforward, simple problem I can fix,” she said. “But I like it. I’m having to think back to all my classes and do a lot of research.”

They work with a lot of pediatric patients, including almost all of the infants who are born deaf in the state, helping families prepare for and follow up after cochlear implants — just what she dreamed of when she set out to get her degree.

“As expensive as grad school can be, it was worth taking the time and money to invest in,” she said.

“I was telling my preceptor the other day that it’s all really starting to come together. It’s clicking,” she said.

“People are relying on your answers for very serious decisions about their health, their future, really their quality of life. You’re really helping people.”