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Inside SLP is a limited series podcast that reveals how our profession came to be and why it functions the way it does. Most clinicians work inside a system they were never taught to see, shaped by decades of history, policy, economics, and unspoken assumptions. This show offers lightbulb moments that bring clarity to the structures beneath our everyday work and opens space for thoughtful, grounded understanding of the field we share.
Welcome to Inside SLP. This is a weekly ten minute podcast about how our profession came to be and where it's heading. Most of us work inside a system we weren't ever really taught to see. Inside SLP offers a way to understand that system with more clarity, calm, context. Each week we explore one idea that helps illuminate the structures, histories, and tensions shaping our field. This podcast is not about outrage or quick solutions. It is about understanding a complex profession so we can navigate it with more confidence and curiosity. I’m Megan Berg. Thanks for being here. Let’s look inside.
Megan Berg:I graduated from the University of Colorado in 2015. I was in my late 20s, shifting into a second career after years as a science communicator. That first career had taken me around the world, filming scientists on glaciers and across the East African rift, watching discovery unfold through a lens. It was wonderful, but I wanted something different. I wanted to work with people directly.
Megan Berg:I had never heard of speech language pathology before grad school. I didn't know any SLPs. I knew I wanted to work in neuro rehab and I assumed, like so many students do, that the path into this field was straightforward. One of my internships was on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. I can still recall the contradictions of that place.
Megan Berg:The wind pushing across the endless plains, the poverty that felt impossible to hold with words, the bright faces of students who craved one on one time, the fierce pride of a community that had endured generations of systemic harm. I remember the rusty mobile homes without heat, the Pepsi in baby bottles, the sunflowers blooming anyway. That experience shaped me. It made me want to understand people more deeply. And eventually it led me to my first job in a school district outside of Fort Collins.
Megan Berg:Then a neuro rehab position opened in Missoula, Montana. I applied immediately, drove thirteen hours for the job interview, and felt like I had won the lottery when I was offered the job. I packed my life into a U Haul and drove north with both dogs in the front seat. I remember my first day vividly. The buzz of the rehab gym, the clatter of walkers, the laughter that leaks out after hard therapy moments.
Megan Berg:I wanted to belong there. HR handed me a stack of onboarding paperwork and asked for my state license. I gave her my freshly earned CCC. She looked at it and said, I don't know what this is. I need your Montana license.
Megan Berg:I didn't understand. When I lived in Colorado, licensure didn't exist yet. It came into effect after I graduated. I had never applied for a state license before. In grad school, the CCC had been described as my golden ticket, the thing that would allow me to work anywhere.
Megan Berg:But here I was on day one of my dream job being told the credential I was most proud of wasn't even recognized. I scrambled to apply for my state license and learned I had to take a jurisprudence exam, a multiple choice test written in a way that felt intentionally confusing. I failed it. And then I failed it again. And again.
Megan Berg:After the third failure, the board informed me that I was no longer allowed to take the exam unless I appeared in person at their next meeting, which was months away. So for the first several months of my new life in Montana, I lived out of my car. It was summer, thankfully. My days were long and quiet. My dogs and I rotated between campsites, moving when the heat became unbearable.
Megan Berg:And I spent those days trying to understand, What had I missed? How did I misunderstand the difference between the CCC and licensure? Why did the system feel opaque from the very beginning? As summer ended, frost began collecting on my tent in the mornings. I remember watching my breath in the cold air, whether I'd be able to keep my job, secure housing, or stay in Montana at all.
Megan Berg:When the board meeting finally came, I splurged on a hotel room in Helena so I could take a shower before pleading my case. I remember sitting in that boardroom, the fluorescent lights, the institutional carpet, the nerves buzzing under my skin. I remember SLPs I had never met showing up to advocate for me. I remember wanting to tell the board everything, the homelessness, the confusion, the fear, but I didn't. I felt so deeply ashamed like I had done something wrong and I needed their approval.
Megan Berg:They granted me permission to retake the exam. Someone quietly passed me the answer key and said, Everyone just shares this. It's the only way to pass. And in that moment, I felt something shift in me. A truth I didn't yet have language for.
Megan Berg:This system is not what I thought it was and I don't understand it. Not yet. That was ten years ago and I've been trying to understand ever since. I tried to talk publicly about the problems I was seeing, especially as my understanding deepened. I tried doing it on social media, sometimes informal projects, sometimes through long posts or discussions, And I learned often painfully that those spaces reward certainty, not curiosity.
Megan Berg:They amplify outrage, not nuance. They move far too fast for the kind of slow, careful understanding that this field requires. Those attempts didn't work because I was still trying to fix something I didn't yet fully understand. I thought if I was loud enough or clear enough, the system would reveal itself. But it didn't.
Megan Berg:Because fixing is fast and understanding is slow. The real light bulb moment for me, the one that shaped this entire podcast is that systems do not yield to being fixed until we can see them clearly. And we cannot see them clearly by rushing. Fixing is immediate and gratifying. It has a certainty fueled by the belief that a problem has a straightforward solution.
Megan Berg:Contemplation is uncomfortable. It's annoyingly slow. It's humbling. And it's rooted in the belief that we don't yet know enough. I've spent years trying to fix the field.
Megan Berg:And the more I tried to fix it, the more confusing it became to me. Now I understand why. I was trying to fix my way out of not understanding. This podcast begins from a different place. Not urgency or outrage, but contemplation.
Megan Berg:For nearly a decade, I've kept returning to the same question. Not because I couldn't answer it, but because each time I did, the answer widened. How did the system of speech language pathology come to be and what might change if we learn to truly see it? Each time I've gone back to that question, I've dug a little deeper. And with every layer uncovered, the ground beneath my understanding didn't just deepen, it widened.
Megan Berg:I've come to believe that understanding works like this. Not as a ladder you climb to reach a conclusion, but as a foundation you excavate and expand. When our base of understanding is shallow, it's narrow. It's easy to stand on until pressure is applied, until complexity shows up, until something doesn't fit the story we were told. But when we take the time to build a wide, stable base, one grounded in history, structure, and context, we can hold far more complexity without losing our balance.
Megan Berg:That's the posture I'm inviting you into here. Not to tear the system down, not to defend it, but to understand it well enough and from a place stable enough that new possibilities can finally come into view. Before we close, I want to invite you to just notice one moment in your work where you feel the urge to solve something immediately. Just observe the feeling and the instinct and don't judge it. Ask yourself, what am I assuming I already understand here?
Megan Berg:Find the time to talk to one colleague, offline, in person, or over the phone, about a part of the profession that feels confusing or weird or opaque to you, and see what emerges when you slow down together. And if you want to take this deeper, I invite you to learn more about the PACT survey, a large scale research project examining how SLPs, audiologists, employers, and consumers experience the system we all work inside. The goal is not to confirm any particular narrative, but to find clarity and the fuller picture of the profession's realities. You can sign up for updates and learn more at PACT survey, pactsurvey.com. This work is way bigger than me.
Megan Berg:I do not have the solutions, but I believe that understanding is an act of hope in the words of Sharon McMahon, and that the more perspectives we gather, the better we will see. Thank you for spending these ten minutes with me. And if today's episode sparked a question you'd like me to sit with, you can submit it at therapyinsights.com/insideslp. I don't respond one on one, but your questions help guide where we go next. This is Inside SLP.
Megan Berg:See you next week.