Where Research Meets the Clinic
Welcome to this issue of Canadian Audiologist. This issue is packed with informative articles, many of which are written so clearly and are so applicable to our clients that they can simply be printed off and given to them. Pam Millett has written a wonderful piece entitled Getting students ready for “back to school.” This covers many of the things that hard of hearing students go through and some simple solutions. Previous issues have also contained some articles that need to be read (and re-read) again. The work of Colleen LePrell comes to mind. Just use the search function within Canadian Audiologist to locate it. And in our next issue (#6) Alberto Behar will have an article entitled “Ototoxicity for the Layperson – A Primer.” Again, another excellent piece that can be printed out and given to patients.
All too often in our field researchers don’t communicate with front line clinicians, and to be fair, the opposite is also frequently the case. However, this is quickly becoming a thing of the past. And many of the research topics that are being studied at the institutional level have clear clinical application. Nothing wrong with basic science (and I still enjoy reading that thoroughly) but it’s nice to see researchers and clinicians (finally) talking to each other.
Beginning this issue of CanadianAudiologist.ca we have a new columnist, Dr. Samira Anderson and her column is called “The Mysteries of the Hearing Brain.” Like an ever increasing percentage of the audiology profession, Samira returned to school to do a PhD in auditory neuroscience after working for 26 years as a clinical audiologist. In this new column she aims to connect recent research advances to clinical practice. Her research continues to be driven by her clinical experiences, and she invites readers to submit their questions or experiences for potential future articles.
And, we need to say goodbye to Dr. Kelly Tremblay who has written her own column for many issues. I thank Kelly for her service, and being Canadian, I suspect that we will see her at future CAA annual conferences. Some of the issues that Samira will be touching on in future columns will overlap with Kelly’s area of expertise. Please check out Samira Anderson’s new column “The Mysteries of the Hearing Brain”.
In this issue we begin with an article with the telling mouthful of a title “aVOR: We Walk You Through An Educational Tool With The Power To Help You Understand the Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex” by Carolyn Falls and Emma LeBlanc. This is followed by an article on the SP/AP ratio with implications for Meniere’s Syndrome by Dr. Wafaa Kaf. And, of course the SP/AP ratio is one of several measures that are being investigated as an indicator of cochlear synoptopathy.
Switching gears, Jackie Phinney, a medical librarian and the director of Wellness Corner Consulting, has written a nice overview of how to use PubMed for our clinical research. “Research Tune-Up: Using PubMed for Quick Searches in the Clinic.” Sara Mamo Has Written a Nice Piece for Science Matters “Alternative models of hearing care for older adults,” and we have an interview with Brent Edwards, the new head of the NAL in Australia. Brent was born and raised in Saskatchewan and… well, just read the interview!
I hope you all had a pleasant holiday season and looking forward to seeing you at the Canadian Academy of Audiology national annual convention in Niagara Falls in October.