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The hearScope

A revolutionary new otoscope is using artificial intelligence to dramatically improve access to ear and hearing care in South African outreach communities. Carolina Leal, spoke to Professor De Wet Swanepoel of the University of Pretoria about how his team developed...

Armageddon and surgical outcomes

In the excitement of the festive season I am sure many of you will have omitted to commemorate the 60th anniversary of a highly significant world event. According to a small apocalyptic cult led by a Chicago housewife named Dorothy...

The seven ages of BACO

Chris Potter is a man whose prose style needs no introduction. Here, he gives us a poetic discourse on the different generations of attendees at BACO. Alfred, Lord Tennyson has washed his hair and can’t do anything with it. It’s...

BACO 2015 – Liverpool

Team BACO 2015: Academic Secretary, Peter Andrews; Treasurer, Chris Potter; Master, Ian Mackay and Local Host and Programme Director, Andrew Swift. (Photo taken by Academic Chairman, Shakeel Saeed.) In the height of a glorious English summer, over 1200 of the...

Human factors, theatre ethnographics and Girls Aloud

The issue of ambient music in the operating theatre is frequently controversial and has been known to cause ‘Bluetooth wars’, as different team members vie for control of the speakers. Our own Chris Potter gives his personal slant on this...

The curse of Sports Illustrated

“Not a supernatural curse, but a basic statistical concept of blinding simplicity.” What is ‘regression to the mean’? I am reliably informed that our former North American colonies publish a periodical known as Sports Illustrated (note, incidentally, the characteristically incorrect...

When dinosaurs ruled the earth

Optimism is abundant in medical research, but frequently ends up being tempered with reality. In his inimitable style, Chris Potter looks back over his career – starting with his medical school memories of Bentley-driving ENT consultants, and moving forward through...

Lies, damned lies and relative risk reduction

Chris Potter has a thing or two to say about the use of statistics and, in doing so, he takes us to a Friday night steak house that is prone to airway disasters and on a short tour of his...

Bishop Berkeley and the Freireich experimental hypothesis

Our resident reporter at large tells us about two of his heroes, both of whom have quite clear merits and foibles. My patients just keep on getting better. You may well point out that under the care of a clinician...

Journal Clubs – The Happy Hour!

Kim W Ah-See is stepping back from his role at the magazine, having first joined as a journal reviewer in 1997. We revisit his first article as How I Do It section editor from 2007. It is with immense pleasure...

Virtual educational outreach in the COVID-19 era

Existing surgical outreach programmes to developing countries have been severely curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This has impacted on opportunities for otolaryngologists from the USA and from other developed countries to contribute to education and training of otolaryngologists in developing...