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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...

Detecting postoperative cholesteatoma with diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging

Middle ear cleft cholesteatoma is an inflammatory disease that erodes local bony structures and can cause otorrhea, hearing loss, vertigo and intracranial complications. It is usually treated with surgery, typically canal wall up (CWU) or canal wall down (CWD) surgery....

Assessment of genetic disorders: congenital sensorineural hearing loss

Severe or profound sensorineural hearing impairment (SNHI) is a common birth defect, affecting approximately 1 in 1000 newborns [1]. SNHI may result from environmental causes or have a genetic basis. The genetic causes can be further subdivided into non-syndromic (isolated...

A small company’s perspective

In this article, we hear from Alan McNulty, Director from Sheffmed, an SME (Small – Medium Enterprise), who have supplied surgical instruments, consumables and video systems to ENT clinicians for over 12 years. Alan outlines some of the choices and...

Music and hearing aids - the current state of affairs

‘Speech sounds great, but music isn’t right’ is a common complaint from hearing aid users across the globe. In this article, Marshall Chasin, one of the most published audiologists on the subject of music and hearing, outlines why patients with...

Why is a Raven like a writing desk? Some reflections on countertenors and castrati

The countertenor voice has seen a resurgence in popularity in the last 50 years. Nicholas Clapton is one of the foremost performers and teachers of his generation, and he tells us here about the link between countertenors and the (fortunately...

Music, hearing, and education: from the lab to the classroom

Historically, research assessing the impact of musical training has focused on those children whose families are able to pay for private lessons. In this article however, Nina Kraus outlines the findings of one of her recent projects; assessing the impact...

The role of the maxillo-facial surgeon in the management of skull base malignancy

Whilst ablative surgery remains the principal treatment option for head and neck malignancy, the skull base is the last frontier. The complex anatomy, supreme functionality of the brain, and varied pathology provokes many a detailed discussion in the multidisciplinary team...

True Cut – a dramatic biopsy from the world of surgery

True Cut is a stage play that asks: “What happens when things go wrong in healthcare?” It brings the hidden world of the operating theatre onto the theatre stage. ENT surgeon, David Alderson, talks about how the play came about....

Alfred Alexander: a life in ENT, but mainly music

Your own voice clinic may be filled with teachers, elderly clergy and badly trained pub singers, but it wasn’t always like this... When I was first invited to write an article about opera and ENT for this edition of ENT...

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...