Towson Resident Brings Perspective to GBMC Audiology

As she speaks to a patient in a soundproof room about the size of a walk-in closet, it's easy for Bridget Niedermeyer to imagine herself in exactly the same spot.

Diagnosed with moderate hearing loss when she was 4, the Idlewylde resident endured years of speech therapy, hearing aids and, later, cochlear implants. Now 26, all those years of work led her down a promising career path.

Niedermeyer, a doctoral student, is interning in the audiology department at , working specifically with cochlear implants.

"The more I'm here, the more I love it," she said.

It's hard not to see why. Niedermeyer's upbeat demeanor and unique experiences help put patients at ease, said Dr. Regina Presley, a senior audiologist at GBMC and Presley's supervisor.

Niedermeyer's familiar with the implants, as the recipient of two herself, one in 2005, the other in 2009. Worldwide, 220,000 people have been fitted with cochlear implants, according to the National Institutes for Health. One-fifth of the patients are Americans, and one-third of those are children.

Though the devices have been around for decades, Niedermeyer said she was nervous about getting one, and didn't really feel like she needed it. For years, she said, she made her way with hearing aids, lip-reading skills and a helpful twin sister.

"You have to be able to make the commitment that you're going to follow through, because it takes a lot of work," she said of the implants. "And I felt like I wasn't really having many difficulties at that time. Maybe my parents thought I was and they saw me struggling, but I was fine."

But as her hearing deteriorated and she entered Towson University's world of cavernous lecture halls and crowded cafeterias, she gave in and got a cochlear implant at age 19.

Niedermeyer never really thought about going into audiology. It just never occurred to her that she would do anything else. When asked what she wanted to do for a living for an eighth grade yearbook, she just wrote "audiology."

"It's just something I've always been interested in doing," she said. :I don't know what provoked me into doing it or anything."

Her internship given her the chance to come full circle in plenty of ways. She's currently working under Dr. Regina Presley, who she first met when she was 15 and had just been identified as a candidate for a cochlear implant.

She spends an average day with Presley working with patients to test and troubleshoot equipment with recent implant patients, the same journey she's taken twice.

"Some are very heightened with their anxiety, even thinking about getting a cochlear impact. So sometimes I don't really share that I have a cochlear implant," she said. "It depends on the situation. The times that I have shared, the patient has received it as very eye-opening and definitely asked me a lot more questions."

Niedermeyer is set to graduate in 2014. Her internship program will take her to other fields within audiology, but she's pretty sure she's found her calling. And feels that, thanks to the implants, her hearing is less of a hindrance and more of a gift.

"I think if I still had two hearing aids, I don't think I would be a successful clinician as I am now with two cochlear implants," she said. "I can say my hearing's not holding me back from doing what I want to do."