Delivering sufficient otology education for undergraduates is known to be difficult, with limited teaching time being a contributing factor. Increasing student access to dissections of the ear could serve to increase satisfaction with teaching at St George's, University of London, UK.

To evaluate student satisfaction with clinical ear anatomy teaching and investigate whether it can be improved using dissected specimens.

Participants completed an online survey and knowledge examinations, both before and after attending a new tutorial, with answers from before and after the session being compared.

Pre-teaching satisfaction scores concerning teaching were low, at an average of 2.45 (out of 7), with a mean examination result of 6.53 (out of 10). Post-teaching average satisfaction increased by 3.20 points to 5.65 (out of 7) (p < 0.01) and examination scores increased by 1.53 points to 8.07 (out of 10) (p < 0.01).

Students are supportive of increased access to cadaver dissections of the ear, and facilitating this can improve satisfaction with otology teaching.

The arrival of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic disrupted life suddenly and forcefully, and healthcare systems around the world are still struggling to come to terms with it. This paper reviews the impact of the pandemic on ENT practice and training.

The present manuscript was developed as a narrative review to examine the role of otorhinolaryngologists in the management of the pandemic, and assess its impact on practice and training in the specialty.

Otorhinolaryngologists handle secretions of organs implicated in disease transmission, leaving them particularly vulnerable even while performing simple procedures. Although the pandemic increased skill expectations, it simultaneously reduced learning opportunities for trainees. In addition, attention to emergencies has been delayed. Further, the suspension of elective procedures has affected patients with malignancies.

While planning service resumption, provisions need to be made for protective equipment and training; improving teleconsultation services will help provide sustainable care during further waves.

Coronavirus disease 2019 has transformed medical education worldwide. Innovations in ENT teaching for medical students have focused on virtual learning, often replacing history-taking, patient examination and practical procedure observation. This qualitative study aimed to evaluate student experience and the impact of the altered learning environment.

Open-ended questionnaires were sent to students following ENT placements from March 2020 to March 2021. Responses were qualitatively analysed and coded using a grounded theory approach. Iterative cycles were used to develop codes via a constant comparison technique. Emerging categories from codes were refined to identify core themes.

Core themes were explored, including: reduced clinical experience and patient contact compared with student expectations; challenges to learning opportunities in ENT; and the experience of different teaching methods, or preference for face-to-face teaching.

Medical students on ENT placement have expectations of patient contact for learning opportunities. ENT departments should ensure that patient contact and face-to-face learning opportunities are facilitated, while maintaining safety, including appropriate personal protective equipment provision.

There is growing concern over a future shortfall in provision of UK otolaryngology consultants. There is a declining rate of applications to otolaryngology specialty training in the UK.

This study aimed to systematically review the literature to establish what factors influence medical students’ and junior doctors’ decision to pursue a career in otolaryngology.

Medline, Embase and PubMed databases were searched in January 2019. Additional manual reference checks of identified literature were performed.

Eleven articles were included in the review. Common factors that positively influenced the decision to pursue a career in otolaryngology were exposure to the specialty, positive role models and a good work-life balance. Lack of exposure was a consistent deterrent from pursuing a career in otolaryngology.

This review reiterates the need for greater exposure to otolaryngology in the undergraduate curriculum. In addition, mentorship for students with an interest in otolaryngology should be a priority.

Endoscopic ear surgery is a technique that is growing in popularity. It has potential advantages in the low-resource setting for teaching and training, for the relative ease of transporting and storing the surgical equipment and for telemedicine roles. There may also be advantages to the patient, with reduced post-operative pain, facilitating the ability to complete procedures as out-patients.

Our Ear Trainer has previously been validated for headlight and microscope otology skills, including foreign body removal and ventilation tube insertion, in both the high- and low-resource setting. This study aimed to assess the Ear Trainer for similar training and assessment of endoscopic ear surgery skills in the low-resource setting. The study was conducted in Uganda on ENT trainees.

Despite a lack of prior experience with endoscopes, with limited practice time most participants showed improvements in: efficiency of instrument movement, steadiness of the camera view obtained, overall global rating of the task and performance time (faster task performance).

These results indicate that the Ear Trainer is a useful tool in the training and assessment of endoscopic ear surgery skills.

Work describing patient and family outcomes after tracheostomy has indicated that patients do not feel prepared at the time of discharge.

To assess healthcare professional–patient interactions in tracheostomy care and the current provision of care.

A global electronic survey was disseminated via e-mail.

The majority of respondents were nursing or speech and language staff, from over 10 countries. Only 23 per cent of respondents’ institutions routinely offered patients the ability to meet people with a tracheostomy pre-operatively. Only 31 per cent consistently provided or co-ordinated full nursing and equipment requirements on discharge. Only half of the institutions participated in tracheostomy quality improvement initiatives; less than one-third of these involved patients.

The provision of tracheostomy care in hospital and at discharge can be improved. The current practice of clinician-led audit is becoming less viable; future initiatives should focus upon patient-centred outcomes to ensure excellence in healthcare delivery.

Simulators are becoming an increasingly important part of surgical training. Temporal bone surgery is one area in which simulators, such as the Voxel-Man TempoSurg simulator, are likely to play a significant role in training. We present learning curve data from novice trainees using this simulator to learn cortical mastoidectomy, exposure of the sigmoid sinus, and exposure of the short process of the incus.

We measured the time taken to perform the procedures, the volume of reference bone removed, and the structures damaged during dissection.

We found improvement in a number of parameters over the course of the study. The overall scores, structural damage scores and time taken improved, to differing degrees, for each task. The volume of reference bone removed remained constant.

These results indicate that the trainees' efficiency improved as they became more proficient at removing a given volume of reference bone.

To determine the awareness of citizens and physicians concerning the capabilities of a rural emergency medical services (EMS) system.

Citizens and physicians are unaware of the capabilities of the EMS system.

Residents were selected randomly from the local telephone directory and asked a series of structured questions about their EMS agency. A written survey was distributed to area physicians. Chi-square analysis was used to compare the proportion of respondents who knew the available interventions in their community with the proportion of those who did not. Statistical significance was inferred at p <0.01.

A total of 49% of the citizens were able to identify available skills, and 41.4% of the physicians were able to identify available skills. Physicians were less likely than were the citizens to be able to identify the skills performed by each provider (p <0.001).

This study indicates that both physicians and the lay public have little understanding of the capabilities of their EMS system.