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Experience on the front line

21st January 2021 Back to basics Yesterday I went right back to where my medical career began. I grew up in Germany, bilingual. A prerequisite to studying medicine in Germany is that applicants have to spend two months working as...

Sound of Metal: an evocative look at the deaf community and cochlear implantation in adults

Sound of Metal is an American drama movie, co-written and directed by Darius Marder, which tells the story of a drummer who suddenly loses his hearing. The film was highly praised, receiving great acclaim for performances from Paul Raci and...

COOL therapy for cisplatin-induced hearing loss

Cisplatin is a commonly used cancer therapy, with nearly 50% of patients undergoing chemotherapy receiving cisplatin as part of their regimen [1]. Depending on the dose, incidence of hearing loss has been reported as 12-100% in adults, and 37-94% in...

The importance of s-ABR in auditory disorders

S-ABR is a method of recording speech-evoked-potentials, but where does it fit in the clinical and research test battery? Here, the authors examine the opportunities for s-ABR. The integrity of the neural transmission of acoustic stimuli is evaluated by auditory...

Oscar Wilde’s Final Irony

The celebrated writer and poet, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on 16 October 1854 in Dublin. He distinguished himself as a classicist at Trinity College Dublin before, earning a scholarship to Oxford University, where he gained a double...

The Indian method: Sushruta’s influence on modern nasal reconstruction

Ancient Indian medicine, as documented in the Sushruta Samhita, contains one of the earliest known references to nasal reconstruction, including surgical techniques still resembling modern practices. (The Sanskrit word ‘Samhita’ is used to define a collection of written work, similar...

Beyond hearing aids: early interventions in hearing care to lower dementia risk

Published in print under the titleHearing care and dementia: professional insights on the new Lancet Commission findingsThe Lancet Commission on ‘Dementia prevention, intervention and care: 2024 report’ highlights a list of potential modifiable factors to reduce dementia risk. As with...

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...

Imaging in hyperparathyroidism

Following their caudal migration at eight weeks of development, the parathyroid glands normally locate posterolaterally to the upper pole of the thyroid gland at the level of the cricoid cartilage (superior parathyroid glands arising from the fourth branchial pouch and...

Genetic discovery using animal models: presbyacusis

By their very nature, late-onset hereditary disorders offer a large window of opportunity for therapeutic intervention. However, before we can begin to think about strategies we need knowledge of the genetics and pathology underlying the condition. In this article we...

Current considerations on neural development and hearing loss in young children

The young child’s brain has the ability to change in response to new stimuli, resulting in learning, the foundation of adaptive and intelligent behaviour. For children with hearing loss, a reduction or lack of auditory stimuli can have a ‘lifelong...