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Adult hearing screenings has counselling opportunities

Adult hearing screening has its challenges, particularly time constraints. Because the process itself is brief, we could efficiently screen dozens of adults per hour; at events such as health fairs, it’s tempting to march people through screenings as quickly as...

Running a post-COVID smell clinic

Over the past year, much of our effort as a speciality has been directed towards crisis management and keeping services afloat. Our practice has changed in untold ways, but unprecedented numbers of patients with smell disorders will increasingly require our...

Effects of blast and acoustic trauma: assessment of hearing status on war veterans

Introduction Acoustical conditions of the military are often dangerous and there is a real risk of blast trauma and acoustic trauma [1, 2]. Levels of military noises maybe reach up to 125 dBA [3]. Weapons produce instant shock waves (10μs)...

Rhinoplasty for cleft nose deformity

Modern cleft lip and palate repairs produce excellent functional and aesthetic results at an early age. Tony Holmes, a craniofacial surgeon with over 40 years’ experience, shares his wisdom on the best timing and techniques for addressing the associated complex...

Experience on the front line

21st January 2021 Back to basics Yesterday I went right back to where my medical career began. I grew up in Germany, bilingual. A prerequisite to studying medicine in Germany is that applicants have to spend two months working as...

The ear-brain connection in cochlear implant users: learning to listen again

While the cochlear implant (CI) has been a tremendous success in restoring hearing to deaf individuals, the implantation outcome still varies across CI users [1]. Some demographic factors, such as duration of deafness, and peripheral factors, such as electrode placement,...

Semi implantable bone conduction devices: challenges and developments

Bone conduction mechanisms and history of bone conduction aids Bone conduction hearing devices work by stimulating hair cells via the bone conduction hearing pathways. These pathways are less well understood than the air conduction pathways, but recent research has shown...

Matthew Clark: full-time otologist, spare-time sculptor

Drilling a temporal bone may seem like torture to some trainee surgeons. To others it is but a stepping stone to something altogether grander... I took Art A-level a year early so as not to interfere with the ‘important subjects’,...

In space no-one can hear you scream…or can they?

Plasma, eardrums the size of planets and questioning the wisdom of your school physics teacher! Martin Archer explains the fascinating world of sound and space. Is there sound in space? If you believed the marketing of the movie Alien, or...