The Role of the ENT Specialist
hearing health professionals
The role of the ENT specialist is much more diverse than you might think! Often, people's first reflex is to see these specialists, also known as otorhinolaryngologists, as surgeons who simply insert tympanostomy tubes and remove tonsils. While these are two of the most common surgeries in North America, ENT specialists do much more than that.
They are physicians and cervicofacial surgeons who treat a host of other conditions like infections, congenital issues, malformations, and inflammatory conditions. They also treat conditions related to various cancers and may even perform cosmetic surgery.
ENT specialists also treat a number of different organs and structures:
- Ears: hearing, tinnitus, and vertigo
- Nose: aesthetics, breathing, smell, and allergies
- Sinuses: nfections and cancers
- Mouth and salivary glands: taste problems, infections, and tumours
- Face: skin lesions and aesthetics
- Neck: pain and masses of various types
- Thyroid, larynx, and pharynx: functional, cancerous, and benign conditions
A Wide Variety of Cases
Because ENT specialists can treat so many conditions and have so many subspecialties, they don’t really have a typical day. At any given time, some may be seeing patients at a hospital or an office to evaluate and treat hearing problems, while others might be saving a newborn’s life by correcting a breathing obstruction or a malformation near their vocal cords. Still others might be using a sophisticated 3D navigation system to very carefully remove a bony obstruction that’s preventing a person’s sinuses from draining.
Some ENT specialists might also remove major throat cancers, then replace the missing tissue with skin and muscle from the leg by grafting the blood vessels into the neck. Or they might perform ear surgery, going in behind the ear to remove a tumour at the base of the skull, below the brain. Others will focus more on cosmetic surgeries.
In other words, ENT specialists can do a lot of different work on a lot of different conditions. Like the cases themselves, no two days are the same!
A Qualified Medical Specialist
ENT specialists need to study for around 10 years and pass the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada exam in order to become ENT specialists. Some will also take an extra two years to study for a subspecialty in a world-class institution so that they can practice in university hospitals center. This provides patients with care of exceptional quality and is accompanied by a constant updating of knowledge.
Finally, ENT specialists need to work with many other healthcare professionals, such as nurses, audiologists, audioprosthetists, and speech-language pathologists, on a regular basis.
So yes, the ENT specialist is indeed responsible for placing the tubes and removing the tonsils, but there is so much more!