Tag: CEHC

On my last day with Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic, it was a slow day in the office, and really it was just a day of few appointments and hanging out. We spent the majority of the day once again without Dr. McElveen, as he was in surgery again. For fun, the office ran some of their tests on me, including their SOT test which serves as a test for people with challenged balance due to some ear problem. Funnily enough, going into the test, as an athlete and as someone with good enough balance (or so I thought), it was actually challenging and very disorienting. After a few tests for fun, we all had lunch together and then I said my goodbyes to everyone in the office, as I had actually had a very fun time working with them and helping them along with their work. Unfortunately, I was not able to see Dr. McElveen today on my last day very much, as he dropped in real quick and then left, but thankfully I said my goodbyes on Tuesday in the OR. Overall, this week was very interesting and definitely introduced me to things I had never before seen, and I am very thankful for the opportunity that I was given.

Today, on my third day with Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic, it was a much calmer, chilled out day. Since Dr. McElveen was not present for a majority of the day, as he is usually out Tuesday-Thursday doing surgeries (as I attended yesterday), the office was much quieter, and instead of around 50 appointments, there were really only 2 or 3. With this decreased inflow of people in the office, I got to have a much more relaxed day, where I could actually take some pictures of the office, instead of frantically running around it. I just spent the day today from 8-4 walking around and helping with some easy hearing tests to recommend people certain procedures as well as discussing the benefits and downfalls of implants versus hearing aids with some of the customers.

Today was the day I drove out to Duke’s Raleigh Hospital to attend 3 surgeries throughout the day and follow Dr. McElveen through his operation schedule. I’ll admit I was anxious walking in, but once I had thrown on my scrubs and sat down for the first surgery, the moment it started the anxiety turned into curiosity, and the curiosity into interest.

I cannot disclose too much about the operations I attended out of respect for the families, nor can my pictures be of the live scene as that is again disrespectful, but I was able to get my hands on some of the actual pictures taken by Dr. McElveen through the microscope, and I must say here and now that if you the reader are squeamish or opposed to blood, you definitely should stop reading this or look away. The following pictures will be followed by text for a little more in-depth understanding.

Again, I’m warning you. Stop here if you don’t really want to see the pictures and the explanation.

 

 

 

So, the first surgery, from which these pictures came, was an operation to insert a cochlear implant for a patient whose hearing had been fully lost. A cochlear implant in one very simplified sentence is basically a hearing aid that is inserted into the skull and connected to the cochlear nerve to stimulate it to once again create functioning hearing. For the patient above, a large incision was made behind the ear to begin, and the skin was pulled open to reveal the back of their skull. In particular, the part of the skull being worked on above is called the mastoid bone and is located at the base of the skull behind the ear. Once they removed the periosteum, or the membrane covering the skull, in the operation area, they brought out a bone drill and began to form the hole pictured above. After what felt like a lot of drilling, passing through the corrugated midsection of the mastoid, the drill finally punctured through into the inner ear, and what had effectively happened was that by going through the bone, they had circumvented the eardrum, therefore allowing them to leave it unharmed for further use. After puncturing into the inner ear cavity, they found the cochlear nerve, one of the four in the inner ear cavity, and made a small incision into which they placed one of the electrodes of the cochlear implant. After ingraining the finger-sized implant a space big enough to fit into the bone of the mastoid, they inserted the implant and then released the skin hooks and sewed the patient’s incision closed. In the end, even though the hole in the skull pictured above looks large and intrusive, the amount of skull bone removed would be unnoticeable to the patient and the scar was quite thin and hard to notice. And besides, the patient now again has functional hearing, which I’m sure anyone would take if the consequence was a thin scar behind the ear. After that operation had ended, I went on to watch two more, from which I don’t have any pictures. They were both tympanoplasties, which is the reconstruction of an eardrum through grafted skin and cartilage. They were as well very interesting, and each operation was done expertly well and quickly by Dr. McElveen and his nurse team. Overall, today was very interesting and educational and I am very thankful to Dr. McElveen and all of the patients for their graciousness in allowing me to attend these surgeries.

Today began my four-day spell with Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic, and for my first day, it was quite eventful. I was working under a renowned doctor by the name of Dr. McElveen, who I met during the 8 AM board meeting. He is a very kind person who keeps the office happy and entertained through his happy attitude that spreads. At the beginning of the day, I worked with the audiology section of the clinic, wherein they specialize in testing people with damaged hearing to see what adjustments through prosthetics/implants to repair their hearing for the rest of their lives. It was very heart-warming to see returning patients come back to the clinic with huge smiles on their faces after a few months of finally being able to hear again thanks to the work performed at the clinic. After working with them for a couple of hours, I moved on to helping Dr. McElveen with his appointments, where I shadowed his schedule and read reports with him, analyzing the symptoms and conditions that the patients were going through, as well as helping him with some of the tests for the patients. After a long lunch break and a warm goodbye to a worker that was having her last day in the office, I continued to shadow Dr. McElveen for the rest of the afternoon. Overall my first day was very fun and I am very excited for the surgeries I am going to attend tomorrow, I’ll make sure to get as many pictures as possible.