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What does an Olympic medal and surgery have in common?

Competing against female Eastern Bloc athletes in the 1980s was a thankless task, demanding a mulish tenacity in an often futile cause. Ideal preparation for a career in surgery? My path to medicine was unusual, in that I left school...

Worldwide picture of candidacy for cochlear implantation

Who should get a cochlear implant? Candidacy is one of the most important and widely discussed topics in the field of cochlear implantation. Here, Chris Raine and Debi Vickers outline cochlear implant candidacy in the UK, and compare this with...

Cochlear implantation for single-sided deafness and asymmetric hearing loss

Continuing our sub-theme of cochlear implantation candidacy, Richard Irving and Raghu Kumar review the principles and benefits of cochlear implantation in individuals who have an asymmetric hearing loss. It is well known that cochlear implantation improves auditory capacity, and in...

The Surgical Skills Centre in BACO 2018: pride of place

Simulation in medical training is gaining prominence with every passing year, and BACO will have a large space showcasing this area. We hear from the organisers. In recognition of the developing importance of simulation in surgical training, BACO 2018 has...

The CEORL-HNS and its role in international collaboration

‘Together we are strong’ just about sums up the nature of the CEORL-HNS, with international and interdisciplinary collaboration at the forefront of its mission. We hear more from two of the leading lights of the organisation. The Confederation of European...

Professor Heinz Stammberger’s pioneering contribution and legacy in the field of FESS

It is no exaggeration to say that functional endoscopic sinus surgery would not exist in its current form without Heinz Stammberger. Prof Valerie Lund traces the development of this relatively recent surgical technique. In the early 1980s, a happy combination...

The otolaryngologist as hospital director: a view from Thailand

Nadtaya Mills is a female otolaryngologist and director of an entire hospital in Thailand. In this article, she offers a fascinating insight to the work she’s done so far to improve resources and services in a challenging environment. The main...

Anaesthesia for excision of vestibular schwannomas

The ‘shared airway’ relationship between ENT surgeons and anaesthetists is well documented. But ENT surgery and anaesthesia interact in numerous other ways, particularly in complex skull base surgery. What do our anaesthetic colleagues want us to know about vestibular schwannoma...

The ENT operating theatre viewed down the retrospectoscope

We learn much of our future by looking at our past; Douglas MacMillan provides us with a fascinating glimpse into his years as a junior doctor. The operating theatre was a somewhat alien environment in the late 1960s: theatre sisters...

Emerging robotic systems for head and neck surgery

As of December 2020, seven robotic surgical systems have received approval for use in different jurisdictions, and many more task-specific robots are in the pipeline. Jack Faulkner takes us through what’s on the horizon for head and neck cancer surgery....

Endolymphatic sac surgery: controversial procedure for the treatment of Ménière’s disease

Landmark Paper: Thomsen J, Bretlau P, Tos M, Johnsen NJ. Ménière’s disease: endolymphatic sac decompression compared with sham (placebo) decompression. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1981;374:820-30. Of all of the chapters in the Landmark Papers book, the chapter that discussed...

Malignant lesions and reconstruction of the pinna

External ear reconstruction can be challenging. Baskaran Ranganathan and Amr Abdelhamid describe how careful assessment, planning and surgery following the subunit principles and reconstructive ladder will ultimately lead to good aesthetic outcomes with restored form and function. The external ear,...