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Department Hours
| Closed | 7:30 am
4:00 pm | 7:30 am
4:00 pm | 7:30 am
4:00 pm | 7:30 am
4:00 pm | 7:30 am
4:00 pm | Closed |
Melissa K. Poole, MA CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist, Regional Craniofacial Clinic Coordinator
Welcome to my home page!
I joined Kaiser Permanente in Oakland in 2007 after moving to California the year before. My husband and I settled in Sonoma County after living in Tucson, Arizona for several years. In Sonoma County, I first started working as an early intervention speech pathologist, which I continue to do on a part-time basis. I soon realized that I missed working in craniofacial care with patients of all ages and providers from multiple different specialties. In the Regional Genetics Department, I work as a speech language pathologist and clinic coordinator in the Craniofacial Multispeciality Program.
I enjoy working directly with families and educating parents on how to facilitate their children’s speech and language development, which is so important for our patients with craniofacial differences. I also enjoy working in an environment where I am continually learning. I find that in a craniofacial setting, I have many opportunities to learn from all the different specialists. At Kaiser, I participate in many different craniofacial clinics, including our Oakland Regional Panel, Follow-Up and Nasoendoscopy clinics, as well as our satellite clinic in Santa Clara and satellite speech clinics in San Jose and Santa Rosa.
I have always been interested in language studies which is why I pursued a Bachelor’s degree in linguistics and a minor in Spanish from the University of Iowa. It was during my linguistic studies that I developed my interest in speech language pathology. I pursued graduate studies in medical and bilingual speech pathology, receiving a Master’s degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from the University of Texas at Austin. I completed my fellowship year in a hospital in Nogales, Arizona, where I worked as a bilingual speech language pathologist, treating primarily adults in inpatient and outpatient settings. I then began working as a pediatric speech language pathologist at multidisciplinary pediatric in Tucson, Arizona where I participated on a cleft palate team for several years. I also worked with other multidisciplinary teams, including a clinic for children with cerebral palsy and other neurological disorders. It was there that I gained experience with augmentative/alternative communication (AAC), brain injury rehabilitation, bilingual speech-language intervention, as well as cleft palate care, providing ongoing speech therapy, sometimes co-treating with occupational and physical therapy.
Throughout my time in Arizona, I volunteered at a free multidisciplinary pediatric clinic in Nogales, Arizona (on the U.S/Mexico border). Several volunteers from physicians to therapists treated indigent children from Mexico with a variety of medical issues. It was there that I coordinated free cleft lip and palate surgeries for Mexican children in Tucson, AZ. My role included teaching parents how to be their own speech therapists with their children when returning home to Mexico. I’ve been very fortunate that my passion for caring for patients with craniofacial differences and my love of new cultures and travel have found the perfect harmony. I continue to participate in international cleft lip and palate surgical missions. So far, I’ve been to El Salvador with Austin Smiles as well as Vietnam and Kenya with Operation Smile with hopefully many more missions in the future.
Outside of work, I enjoy traveling with my husband. We traveled in Mexico, India and Southeast Asia with just our backpacks for a year. I’ve also been an exchange student two times. In high school, I studied a semester in Argentina where I got my foundation in speaking Spanish. In college, I studied for a year in the Netherlands. I also enjoy camping, yoga, cycling and swimming.
Affiliations: American Craniofacial Cleft Palate Association
Certification: American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA)
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