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Communicating with patients in 
‘Plain English’

Physicians have long been accused of using unnecessarily complicated language and impenetrable jargon as a way of maintaining their status, prestige and high earnings-potential, bamboozling the public and excluding them from meaningful discussion as part of what George Bernard Shaw...

Staying safe during endoscopic ear surgery

There is growing interest in using rigid endoscopes rather than traditional operative microscopes to perform transcanal middle ear surgery. Rigid endoscopy provides a high resolution, wide-angle view of the tympanic cavity through minimally invasive surgical portals. In this article, Elliott...

Diagnosing and managing somatic tinnitus

Interactions between auditory and somatosensory pathways can lead to interesting tinnitus experiences which can be very bothersome. Dr Sarah Michiels describes her pioneering work in this area, and the possibilities of physiotherapy based therapy. Background Somatic (also called somatosensory) tinnitus...

Taking a fresh look at otoacoustic emissions

So what has changed in four decades of OAEs? Do we now have all the answers? Have we reached our optimum recording ability? Professor Kemp explains what we know, what we don’t know and what’s to come. In the 40...

Is one glass of wine on call safe?

It’s a standard question for those about to sit a Specialist Training (ST) interview; you are on call and you call a senior colleague in to perform an operation. You smell alcohol on the breath of the surgeon, so what...

How to identify and support adults with auditory processing disorder: a focus on low-gain devices and auditory training

Some adults struggle with hearing in noise despite normal audiograms. Tools like the HHIA, low-gain devices and auditory training can help identify and support these cases. In this article, Angela Alexander and Fatima Abbas use a case study to discuss...