It is hard to believe that this is the 14^th time I have issued an annual state-of-the-department report – tempus fugit!  With each passing year I realize more and more the reasons why Stanford Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery (OHNS) is special. We are blessed with a warm and collegial culture among our community of 286 faculty, trainees, and staff. We strive for, and achieve, excellence in all of our core missions: clinical care, education, and research.  In clinical care, we have depth, breadth, and high levels of expertise in all of the specialty areas of contemporary OHNS.  We enjoy the finest clinical facilities at Stanford and cutting edge technology in our clinics and operating rooms.   Our remarkable group of clinician-scholars in training ensures a bright future for our field. Our peerless basic and translational science faculty are both immensely creative and highly productive.

Statistical Abstract 2018

Clinically, we have thriving faculty practices with 5,189 operative procedures (3152 adult, 2037 pediatric) and clinic visits of 25,538 adult (11,179 new patients) and 11,175 pediatric (3950 new patients).  Our 53 Faculty and 21 Residents contributed some 222 peer reviewed publications in 2017.  Our basic and translational researchers have 64 Extramural grants including 11 NIH R-01s, U01, P30, DoD, CIRM, etc.  As we enter 2018 we are listed in the top 10 in US News (#9) and in the top 5 in NIH awards (#4). We are pleased that 2017 has been a highly productive year and look forward eagerly to 2018.

The core strength of Stanford OHNS is its outstanding faculty.  In 2003, the year we became a department, we had 5 faculty. We begin 2018 with 53 faculty at Stanford (16 Professors, 6 Associate Professors, 21 Assistant Professors, 10 Instructors with an additional 5 affiliated faculty at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. We also have an increasing panel affiliates in our University Health Care Alliance offices in San Ramon and San Jose.

Stanford OHNS is well represented among the medical center and school leadership.  Lloyd Minor is the School of Medicine Dean.  Eben Rosenthal is the Ann & John Doerr Medical Director of the Stanford Cancer Center and Associate Director of Clinical Care for the Stanford Cancer Institute.  Ed Damrose has begun his three year term as Stanford Health Care Chief of the Medical Staff this year and Peter Koltai is a recent past Chief of the Medical Staff at Stanford Children’s Hospital.

Welcoming New Faculty in 2017

During 2017, we welcomed 7 new faculty

Jon-Paul “JP” Pepper joins us after serving for 4 years on the USC faculty. Both his residency and facial plastic surgery fellowship were at University of Michigan. He also did a masters in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine at USC.   JP now leads the Stanford Multidisciplinary Stanford Facial Nerve Center and conducts research in nerve healing and regeneration.

Iram Ahmad joins us after her residency and pediatric fellowship at the University of Iowa. She also did a masters in medical education at Iowa.  Her clinical interest is in pediatric otology and she plans to study the auditory implications of CMV infection.

Tulio Valdez joins us after serving for 8 years on the University of Connecticut faculty. His residency was at Tufts and his pediatric fellowship at the Baylor-Texas Children’s Hospital. He also did a masters in clinical and translational research at UConn.  Tulio’s research focuses on the development of short wave infrared imaging of middle ear pathologies.   

Karuna Dewan joins us following her residency at the University of Tennessee and 2 year laryngology/swallowing fellowship at UCLA. She has both clinical and research interests in swallowing disorders and chronic cough.

Misha Amoils was both a Stanford undergraduate and completed our OHNS residency in June 2017.  She joins our affiliated faculty at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and also contributes to resident teaching at the Palo Alto VA Medical Center.

Peter Santa Maria did his OHNS residency and PhD at the University of Western Australia.  He spent 3 years as instructor in neurotology at Stanford during which he participated in both the Biodesign and SPARK (drug discovery) programs. After 3 years on faculty at the University of Western Australia he joins the Stanford faculty.  His special interests include regeneration of the tympanic membrane and medical device development.

Kristen Steenerson trained in neurology at the Mayo Clinic and took advanced training in oto-neurology.  She has special interests in vestibular disorders, vestibular migraine, and tinnitus.  Her research involves refining the use of vestibular testing.
 

Recruitments underway for 2018

In 2018 we expect to add 3 additional faculty with searches underway in head and neck/ endocrine surgery (2) basic science as well as expanding our affiliated network in the South Bay and East Bay regions. 

Our immensely talented trainee population includes 21 OHNS residents, 2 ACGME accredited fellows (pediatrics, neurotology), and 9 instructors (head & neck surgery, sinus surgery (2), facial plastics surgery, pediatric, laryngology, sleep surgery, and neurotology (2).  We also have a number of graduate students, post-doctoral research fellows, instructors, and visiting scholars.  Dozens of Stanford and visiting medical students are on rotation throughout the year.

We are in the second year of our NIH funded program (T32), intended to produce scientist-surgeons is under the faculty leadership of Alan Cheng.  This program allows selected residents and fellows to undertake 2 years of funded research in addition to their 5 clinical years. Our T-32 research training program now has two tracks. One is a 7-year residency research track, which combines 5 years of clinical training in OHNS with 2 years of research training starting after the PGY2 year. The second is a 2-year post-residency track, which will be used to provide a research experience for those individuals that desire an extended research experience after residency training. Both tracks are post-doctoral fellowships for otolaryngology residents, with the main difference being that the first track has the research block in the middle of residency training and the second track has the research block after residency has been completed.  Both tracks provide guidance on how to balance research and clinical responsibilities in order to prepare the trainees to become independent physician-scientists. Grace Kim (resident) and Taha Jan (fellow) are now engaged in research in our T32 program and both Jason Qian (R-2) and Tina Munjal (R-1) will join in coming years.  

To accommodate this new program, and our departmental growth, Stanford OHNS was approved by the Otolaryngology Residency Review Committee (RRC) to increase from 4 to 5 residents per year starting in 2017 for a total of 25 residents in our program by 2021. In late 2017, Vice Chair Anna Messner was been elected to the OHNS RRC.

Many of our residents and fellows take advantage of the rich educational environment of Stanford.  The Stanford Society of Physician Scholars provides training and mentoring core academic skills through evening sessions throughout the year.  The SPECTRUM 1 week intensive course in clinical research educates on study design and performance.  A number of our trainees and faculty have participated in the renowned Stanford Biodesign program which teaches medical device innovation and entrepreneurship.

The exceptional quality of today’s trainees insures that the future of our specialty will be in the best of hands. Our residents are having great success in obtaining fellowship positions and the graduates of our instructor/fellow programs obtain excellent faculty positions. Among our residency graduating class of 2017, 3 graduates went on to sub-specialty fellowship (2 rhinology, 1 FPS) and one joined the affiliated Stanford faculty at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. 

We have undertaken a number of initiatives designed to enhance the educational value of our website. OHNS grand rounds and CME courses are available online on our departmental website and iTunes channel.  Over 2000 original illustrations are online in our skull base, neurotology, and otology atlases.  We are in the midst of expanding this resource to encompass all of OHNS.

Nik Blevins and a team of computer scientists and engineers have created a haptic reinforced sinus and temporal bone surgical simulator.  Our Perkins Microsurgery Teaching Laboratory has newly installed LED based microscopes with high definition video displays. Kwang Sung utilized the microsurgery lab for performing a phonomicrosugical simulation study with the residents. Twice a year Dr. Jennifer Lee, who is trained in surgical simulation, leads all OHNS residents through varied simulations such as “anaphylaxis” and “angioedema.” For student use, we purchased two otoscopy simulators; one for the department and the other was donated to the medical school’s simulation facility.

We have completed our departmental introductory textbook, a multi-authored work created entirely by our faculty and trainees and are in the process of making it available online. It goes under the title SOITO: Stanford Online Interactive Textbook of Otolaryngology.  (http://enttextbook.stanford.edu) The text is targeted primarily for medical students, beginning residents, and patients interested in a reliable source of sophisticated medical information.  The concept is to make available a well-illustrated online text, continuously updated, and made freely available to trainees and patients worldwide. Under the editorial leadership of Dr. Jennifer Lee this 72-chapter project has taken a couple of years to produce and has several hundred original illustrations.

Working with the Stanford Faculty Development Center (SFDC), we launched our surgical teaching course in 2014. Anna Messner, an SFDC-trained facilitator, leads an annual teaching course oriented to teaching skills in the operating room to new OHNS faculty, fellows and the chief residents.   

About twenty Stanford students rotate in our department as part of the general surgery core clerkship; and approximately 20 sub-interns come from other institutions. Our visiting sub-intern rotation has become very popular, highly competitive, draws high outstanding applicants from around the country.

Stanford is a research intensive school of medicine and we are a research intensive department.  Our commitment to basic and translational research is well illustrated by the growth of our annual research budget from under $5,000 (2003) to over an estimated $10 million in 2017.  In 2017, Stanford OHNS is ranked #4 nationally in NIH funding. We have some 12,000 sq. ft. of research space with our major laboratory in the Edwards building and additional facilities in Lokey Stem Cell, Grant, and CCSR buildings.  Most will coalesce into the new Biomedical Innovations Building starting construction this year with anticipated occupancy in early 2020.  

In late 2017, departmental faculty have more than 64 competitive extramural grants and are principal investigator on 11 NIH R-01s, U01, 2 DoDs, a CIRM award, and 18 industry grants.  Our basic science research community consists of 110 faculty, post-docs, researchers, students and other trainees.

Please see our annual Research Report for greater detail

Philanthropy

In 2017, OHNS has received over 200 gifts from grateful patients and individuals who share our passion for research and innovation.  We are supported by Dr. Clifford Harris of the Office of Medical Development, who works closely with both our faculty and our generous donors. New gifts and pledges in 2017 exceeded $6,000,000, representing a trend of increasing donor support of our preeminent research programs.

If you would like to learn how you can support us in coming years, please contact Dr. Harris at (650) 721-5659 or visit our website:  med.stanford.edu/ohns

Biomedical Innovations Building

Future home of OHNS Research Laboratories in early 2020

The New Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Hospitals

Stanford Medicine is very much looking forward to occupying two splendid, state-of-the-art new hospitals which are in advanced stages of construction.  The spectacular new Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital opens in December 2017 with the state-of-the-art new surgical suites to follow in spring 2018.  The new Stanford Hospital is anticipated to open in early 2019.  This $3+ billion project will provide many more ICU beds and operating rooms and have private room for all patients.

Stanford OHNS scholars have remained highly productive this year.  PUBMED lists 222 peer reviewed publications for Stanford OHNS in 2017, which does not include books, chapters, abstracts, or editorials.  Working with our departmental web designer Crystal Chen, we have comprehensively modernized our websites. Our research community has been especially creative in using latest web design elements (https://med.stanford.edu/ohns/research/labs).

For the second time this year, we moved our alumni event at the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery from Tuesday to Sunday evening.  Gratitude to faculty member Mai Thy Truong who hosted in Chicago this fall and has generously offered to host again in 2018 at the AAO-HNS meeting in Atlanta.

Invitations

Individuals or families interested in supporting our research programs are welcome to join us to meet our faculty and tour our laboratories.

Alumni are always welcome to return to “The Farm” for a visit! 

Please email me at jackler@stanford.edu and we can set up a time for a chat and a tour.