PET combined with CT might be one of the most powerful imaging technologies available, but how effective it is in evaluating head and neck tumors and helping with treatment is not a cut-and-dried proposition, said Jonas Johnson, MD, in his State of the Art Lecture at the 115th Annual Meeting of the Triological Society, held here on April 20 as part of the Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meetings.
Lasers may have first been introduced into medicine 60 years ago, but removing disease while keeping healthy tissue intact can still be a complicated proposition, said Mark Courey, MD, director of the University of California San Francisco Voice Center, who gave a State of the Art Lecture here on April 20 at the 115th Annual Meeting of the Triological Society. The meeting was held as part of the Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meetings.
Whether you’ve given hundreds of presentations throughout your medical career or are preparing for your first conference presentation or lecture, there’s always room for improvement when it comes to professional speaking.
The opportunity to gain more surgical experience as a facial plastics fellow was enticing to Hussein Samji, MD, MPH, as he finished his residency at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2010. But after exposure to some of the more mundane aspects of the subspecialty during screening interviews, Dr. Samji said he knew it wasn’t the career path for him.
Every otolaryngology group needs a chance to evaluate its organization outside the frenetic pace of day-to-day patient care. A practice retreat provides the opportunity to assess your operations, examine your mission and conduct strategic planning in a setting where physicians are relaxed and undistracted.
Otolaryngologists with a desire to broaden their careers beyond traditional medical practice have several options. Programs exist that can open doors into medical leadership, health policy work, clinical and outcomes research and public office. Opportunities are available at all stages of a physician’s career. Here’s a look at a handful of programs that aim to provide physicians with the tools they need to take their careers in a new direction.
In my January 2011 column (“A Seller’s Market: How to prepare your practice for sale to a hospital”), I described the growing trend of physicians selling their practices to hospitals and large health systems and then working for the hospital or health system. This trend is expected to continue in full force through 2012. As I noted in my January article, the physician’s post-sale arrangement is the driver for the growth of the physician’s practice within the hospital or health system.
For residents embarking on their professional careers or physicians changing a career, navigating the many issues involved in making a decision that will significantly affect both their professional and personal lives can be daunting and challenging. To provide some guidance, practicing physicians with many years of experience in their respective careers discussed these issues during a session held here Sept. 13 at the 2011 American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) Annual Meeting.
It can be difficult to launch a career as a physician–scientist, especially when budget cuts are making research funding harder to find—and this is doubly true for a small specialty like otolaryngology. That challenge is the reasoning behind the Triological Society’s grant programs. The society, which has awarded more than $2.5 million in grants since 1994, promotes research into the causes and treatments of ear, nose and throat diseases.