How much stock should otolaryngologists put into the parental interpretations of their child’s complaints? According to Ellen M. Friedman, MD, an otolaryngologist in Houston, parental descriptions are an important part of patient histories, but you still need to perform objective measures.
Microdebrider surgery, a technology with its roots in the rotary vacuum shaver introduced by Urban in 1968 for removal of acoustic neuromas, is now being successfully utilized for many different types of procedures.
Smaller incisions, fewer complications, and a speedy return home are a few of the advantages otolaryngologists can offer by managing their patients on an outpatient basis or using minimally invasive surgical techniques.
Not long ago, physicians routinely decried evidence-based medicine (EBM) as an encroachment on their professional autonomy, a barrier to good patient care, insensitive to health care’s growing complexity, and at odds with the transcendent value of the physician-patient relationship.
Although voice therapy is commonly used as an initial treatment for vocal fold nodules, its role in the treatment of vocal fold polyps and cysts is less defined.
The largest survey to date of patients with allergic rhinitis (AR) and physicians who treat them revealed that patients’ and physicians’ perceptions of this disorder are not always in sync.
Even in patients with relatively common sinus disease, decision making about endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) can be difficult, and not all cases are the same.
A new era in efforts to treat patients with tissue loss or organ failure is under way, which has the potential to revolutionize the treatment of many diseases and conditions that otolaryngologists treat.
Improving health care quality is absolutely the right thing to do for our patients, and different approaches are being used by the various organizations involved in health care.