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In memory of Robert Allan Yorston (10th March 1920 – 1st October 2016)

In this special feature article, Alan Gibb writes a touching tribute to his friend and colleague Dr Bob Yorston, a Dundee otolaryngologist, who had a special talent for humour and art. In addition to illustrating the eighth, ninth and tenth...

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...

From Hippocrates to COVID-19: sniffing out the disease

The ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates, used the ‘art of smell’ to diagnose diseases around 400BC. He also formulated miasmatic theory, which posited that disease is caused by bad smells. Bad air was strongly believed by many physicians to be the...

Discovery in the genetics of complex disease: Otitis media

Otitis media (OM), a common disease of childhood, is considered to be a complex trait with multiple genetic and environmental factors expected to contribute to a child’s risk of developing recurrent acute OM (rAOM; ≥3 episodes in 6 months or...

BACO: The Master’s role

Ian Mackay is this year’s BACO Master, with Valerie Lund taking over for the next meeting. As the senior overseer of the conference, the role of Master is a crucial one, and Ian tells us how he has gone about...

Advances in vestibular function testing

Vestibular function testing has historically been limited by difficulties in testing individual parts of the vestibular apparatus. Jas Sandhu describes new tests available to clinicians that address this problem. Advances in vestibular function testing Vestibular function testing has historically been...

Burnout: is this just a pandemic phenomenon?

The phrase ‘burnout’ is often heard, but what is it, and what are the early warning signs? Importantly, how can it be prevented or managed? Over the last few years, health professional wellbeing, mental health, and burnout have come to...

Wellbeing – a Scandinavian perspective

The Swedish concept of ‘fika’ is a state of mind and can help to promote wellbeing in teams. But what is it, and how can it help? It is an interesting thought that being well is not the same as...

Loss of smell after COVID-19: a view from the patient forums

Patient advocate, Chrissi Kelly, founder of AbScent, talks about how the pandemic has changed the way we think about smell loss. The high prevalence of chemosensory impairment as a result of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has shone a much-needed spotlight on...

Airway stenting in paediatric ENT

Although experience in the use of airway stents in adults is considerable, their use in children is more recent and more limited. Cláudia Schweiger and Michael J Rutter provide an overview of stents and their use in paediatric airway. Stenting...

Developing medical devices for children: opportunities and challenges

The development of medical devices for infants and children lags significantly behind the development of devices for adults. While in the United States the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has set up incentives for developing child age-specific pharmaceuticals, there is...