Covid-19 has necessitated that many patient pathways to be reconfigured due to social distancing as well as personal protective considerations for patients and staff. In this seminar we will consider the patient experience, the public health implications of Covid-19 for hearing healthcare professionals, surgery and anaesthesia risks, and organisational changes needed within a service to facilitate recovery of clinical activity.
Watch the presentations from this webinar here.
Gerard O’Donoghue qualified in medicine in University College, Cork in Ireland and undertook his otolaryngology training in London and Oxford, availing of Fellowships at University Hospital in Boston and at the University of California in San Francisco. He is Professor of Otology and Neurotology and Consultant Neuro-Otologist at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. In 1989, he established the Nottingham Cochlear Implant Programme along with an educational charity, The Ear Foundation. He has been President of the Section of Otology, The Royal Society of Medicine, London and has held a Hunterian Professorship at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He co-founded the British Skull Base Society and is founder member of the European Academy of Otology and Neurotology. He has delivered the Toynbee Memorial Lecture and was awarded the Sir William Wilde Medal of the Irish ENT Society (2011), The Brinkman Medal of the University of Nimegen (2009), The Jobson Horne Award of the British Medical Association (2017) and delivered the William House Memorial Lecture of the American Neurotologic Society (2016). He co-founded the Nottingham Hearing Biomedical Research Centre of the National Institute of Health Research with research interests including clinical trials and regenerative inner ear therapeutics. He is a Commissioner for the current Lancet Commission on Hearing Loss and Master of the British Academic Conference in Otolaryngology in 2021.
Katherine Bouton (US)
Katherine Bouton is the author of “Shouting Won’t Help” (2013), a memoir of adult-onset hearing loss, and “Smart Hearing” (2018), a guide to living with hearing loss. She is a former editor at The New York Times. She has had progressive bilateral hearing loss since 1978. In September 2009, she received a cochlear implant. She is immediate past president of the New York City Chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America and has just completed two terms as a member of the national Board of Directors of HLAA. She writes the popular blog “Smart Hearing” at katherinebouton.com.
Frank Lin (US)
Frank R. Lin, M.D., Ph.D. is the director of the Cochlear Center for Hearing and Public Health and a Professor of Otolaryngology, Medicine, Mental Health, and Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins. His research focuses on studying questions at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology, and public health.
Bruce Gantz (US)
Bruce J Gantz, MD is currently Professor and Chair emeritus of the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery and Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine.
Dr Gantz’s research interests include: cochlear implants, management of facial paralysis, hearing preservation in acoustic tumour and skull-base surgery, and management of cholesteatoma.
Thomas Roland (US)
Professor J. Thomas Roland, Jr., MD is the Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Professor of Neurosurgery, Co-Director of the NYU Langone Health Cochlear Implant Center and Co-Director of the Neurofibromatosis Center at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York, NY.
His clinical work over the past 25 years has been in the management of lateral skull base tumors including an interest in hearing management in the patient with NF2. Additionally, he has performed more than 3000 cochlear implants with special interest and expertise in the complicated cases. The NYU group is also one of the largest Auditory Brainstem Implant teams in the United States.
The bulk of Dr. Roland’s research is related to cochlear implant electrode design and implementation, auditory brainstem implant in children with cochlear nerve deficiency, outcomes with skull base tumors and facial nerve reanimation. He has published over 200 manuscripts, is the editor of three textbooks and has numerous textbook chapters.
Lastly, Professor Roland has a keen interest in teaching, has performed surgery in over 12 countries, and has continuing hearing health projects in Uganda and Israel.
Douglas Hartley (UK)
Professor of Otology at Nottingham University and a consultant ENT surgeon at Nottingham University Hospital’s NHS Trust – Queen’s Medical Centre. Specialties Otology, including cochlear implantation. Surgical lead with the Nottingham Auditory Implant Program. Sub-specialty interests: Otology & Auditory Implantation, including Cochlear implantation, Bone-Anchored Hearing Aids, Middle-Ear Implants, Ossiculoplasty and Mastoid surgery.
University Website: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/medicine/People/douglas.hartley
Thomas Lenarz (DE)
Thomas Lenarz studied medicine and biochemistry at the universities of Tübingen, Erlangen, Heidelberg and London from 1975 until 1981 and received his doctoral degree in medicine. Ph.D. in pharmacology of the auditory system in 1987. Postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California in San Francisco in 1989. Since 1993 Chairman and Professor at the Department of Otolaryngology, Hannover Medical School. Since 2013 co-director of the Cluster of Excellence Hearing4All Hannover-Oldenburg. Director of the German Hearing Centre and the Research Institute of Audio- and Neurotechnology in Hannover. Member of the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) and the German Academy of Technology (acatech). Past President of the German Society of Biomedical Technology. Research interests in the area of auditory implants, biomaterials for medical implants, audiology and neurotology.
Robert Briggs (AU)
Robert JS Briggs FRACS
Robert Briggs is an Otolaryngologist with a clinical practice and research specializing in Otology and Neurotology. His current appointments are Clinical Professor in the University of Melbourne Departments of Surgery and Otolaryngology, Head of Otology and Medical Director of the Cochlear Implant Clinic at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. He has a large experience with acoustic neuroma surgery and with cochlear implantation. His research has focused on Cochlear Implant Electrode development and safety as well as Cochlear Implant outcomes, particularly in young children.
