Justine Leonard (CS), Senior Paediaitric Audiologist, St Thomas' Hospital, London
This year I had the pleasure of attending the BAA Conference held at Telford International Centre. Held over two days, the conference remains the largest in the UK for Audiology and provides an excellent opportunity to learn from leading clinical leads about a wide range of topics across our practice.
The conference began with a warm welcome and kicked off with the Adrian Davis Lecture by Dr Brent Edwards from National Acoustic Laboratories (NAL) on ‘Revolutionising Audiological Care Through Innovation in Clinical Tools and Treatment Strategies’. He discussed the ways in which AI could be applied in audiology, from improving diagnostic accuracy to freeing clinicians from lengthy report writing to spend more time with their patients. The NAL team have just begun building an app to help teach new clinicians how to take clinical histories and debrief their patients. He also highlighted the ongoing use of AI to make increasingly better noise management settings for hearing aid users, which will likely shape the developing of their new NAL NL3 prescription.
Another highlight was from the Microtia and Atresia Team at Guys and St Thomas’ hospital. The multidisciplinary clinic includes ENT, plastic surgery, maxillofacial, prosthetic and cleft palate consultants along with audiological scientists and speech and language therapists from the hearing implant team. I had no idea of the incredible ways in which outer ears could be reconstructed (from patients' own rib cage tissue in childhood to the prosthetic ears now available), and the psychological support these teams offer during patients' journeys. It was also fascinating to learn more about the types of middle ear implants available. 
Throughout the conference, several sessions focused on audit as a tool for change and measuring quality. There were also talks on occupational stress, training pathways and growing the workforce. Research was a key theme, with discussions on genetic research into hereditary hearing loss and the progress of gene therapy and stem cell applications in treating hearing loss, providing a glimpse into the potential for ground breaking treatments in the near future. Some particularly well attended session focused on paediatric audiology, reflecting on parental experiences in Scotland and how we best manage unilateral and mild hearing loss.
The conference provided ample opportunity to network with fellow professionals and manufactures in a warm and friendly atmosphere. I got to connect with lots of old faces and some new, who were displaying posters highlighting the research and service development within their teams. I very much look forward to collecting all of the exhibitors’ passport stamps to try to win myself a prize next year!
