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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...

Thyroid nodules – time for a rational imaging approach

“The more you know, the harder it is to take decisive action. Once you become informed, you start seeing complexities and shades of gray. You realize that nothing is as clear as it first appears. Ultimately, knowledge is paralyzing.” Calvin,...

BTA Plug’em campaign – teaching young people how to enjoy live music safely

In today’s world of ever-increasing sound levels, the Plug’em campaign, run by the British Tinnitus Association (BTA), is highlighting the issue of tinnitus caused by loud music in people aged 16-25 years old. The purpose of the campaign is to...

The National Bone Conducting Hearing Implant Registry

Are you an otologist with an interest in implant surgery? Is your unit on the registry? If not, you’d better have a good excuse after reading this… What is the National BCHI Registry? The National Bone Conducting Hearing Implant (BCHI)...

10 steps to improving transition to adult services

Children and parents like the reassurance that staying under the care of the team who looked after them from birth gives, but as the child approaches adulthood he / she must come under the care of a new team. This...

The role of objective measures and imaging to optimise cochlear implant outcomes

Should we be using new or novel objective measures and imaging to assist with our cochlear implant patients? Debi Vickers and Shak Saeed describe current clinical techniques and present advances that have the potential to optimise outcomes. Introduction It is...

Achieving consensus on candidacy for cochlear implantation

The British Cochlear Implant Group’s candidacy working group recently ran a national exercise, working towards a consensus on candidacy for cochlear implantation in the UK. Padraig Kitterick and Debi Vickers were instrumental in this exercise, and in the article below,...

Diagnosis, wearables and remote monitoring in 15 and 50 years

In 2069 will we look forward to being enslaved by robots, becoming zombies or having our health (and ill health) diagnosed by nanotech? Ajith George muses over what the future holds for us all. The future of healthcare, not just...

Acoustic shock: definitions and clinical aspects

Acoustic shock, a previously little-known and poorly understood clinical entity, came to the public’s attention in 2019 due to a high-profile legal case of a musician at the Royal Opera House. In this fascinating article, Andrew Parker and William Parker...

Machine learning and the future of otolaryngology

If you are over 30 years of age, you have witnessed a technology revolution that has grossly affected how we live: computers have come from being an oddity to an everyday feature in our households and places of work; the...

Supporting music listening through cochlear implant services – experience from a UK adult clinic on supporting musical engagement

The perception and enjoyment of music is central to many people’s lives. Harriet Crook (herself a cochlear implant recipient) tells us about important work in this area for people using hearing aids and CIs. There is now a wealth of...