Developing a FEES service in South Africa: Interdisciplinary reflections for dysphagia care.
Nancy Barber, Timothy Capon, Marina De Lira de Gouveia and 1 others
PMID 41405073WHAT IT FOUND
Four dysphagia clinicians reflected that building a bedside FEES service depended on ENT, SLT and nursing collaboration, protected scheduling, shared endoscope access, and education to overcome scepticism.
They described FEES helping guide diet and feeding decisions, but gave no patient outcomes.
Key findings
01Implementing the FEES service depended on collaboration between SLTs and ENT, plus nursing staff understanding their role.
02Scheduling was complicated by high patient volume and limited staff and equipment, and the service relied on one privately owned video nasopharyngoscope.
03The authors described FEES as providing direct visual information that helped tailor interventions and choose between swallowing exercises and gastrostomy tube placement.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The findings are four clinicians' reflections on their own service, not patient data, so they cannot show that FEES changes swallowing outcomes. All authors were FEES-trained and worked in private healthcare, so their experience may not transfer to public or under-resourced settings. The authors acknowledged that duoethnography is subjective and that workplace relationships may have led them to censor their accounts. The service relied on one privately owned video nasopharyngoscope, so consistent scheduling and sustainability may differ where equipment is shared or absent.
Declared interests
The authors report no specific grant from any public, commercial or not-for-profit funding agency.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that FEES improves patient outcomes or reduces costs. The paper reports no patient outcomes or costs; it is a reflection on building a service.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →