The 7th Annual Otology Fellows Congress and Advanced Course in Ear and Skull Base Surgery at the Yasargil Surgical Skills Laboratory & Education Center at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock was held October 18-20. The course included lectures and extensive laboratory dissections covering topics such as advanced soft tissue techniques/local flaps, malleostapedotomy, endoscopic ear surgery, complex ossiculoplasty, mastoid cavity obliteration, and difficult cochlear implant cases. The state-of-the-art bone lab, which is equipped with 12 stations, including microscopes, drills, and video monitoring, provides the ideal setting for conducting broad dissection sessions on a variety of lateral skull base approaches, including infratemporal fossa, extended middle cranial fossa, translabyrinthine, jugular foramen, and retrosigmoid/retrolabyrinthine.
The course provides a unique and outstanding opportunity for fellows to focus on advanced surgical techniques that are well beyond the scope of a typical temporal bone course, while networking alongside other otology/neurotology fellows from around the world. This year’s attendees came from 23 different medical schools and 7 different countries.
John Dornhoffer, M.D., professor and chair of the UAMS Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, is a co-chair of the Congress. He is an international expert in chronic ear conditions and has performed hundreds of corrective procedures for patients with audiological deficits, including cochlear implants and bone-anchored hearing aid placement.
Brandon Isaacson, M.D., and J. Walter Kutz, Jr., M.D., both professors in the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, are the other chairs of this event, participating since its inception in 2016.
Other guest instructors were:
- Rick Nelson, M.D., PhD, Medical Director of the Indiana University Health’s Skull Base Surgery Program in Indianapolis, IN.
- Elizabeth Toh, M.D., professor and chair of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, Burlington, Maine.
- Simon Lloyd, M.D., honorary professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Manchester, UK.
- Robert Saadi, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR.
The course is free, thanks to donations from industry sources, and attending fellows only need to cover their airfare.
Event Pictures
