About the Department Otolaryngology (ENT) - Head & Neck Surgery

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Welcome to the Department of Otolaryngology (ENT) - Head and Neck Surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina. As Chairman of the Department, it is my privilege to introduce the comprehensive medical and surgical services which are detailed on this Web site. Simply stated, these services and programs are unsurpassed within South Carolina and regionally. Our excellence is directly attributable to our nationally recognized faculty, most of whom have subspecialty training (fellowships) in the various areas of ear, nose, and throat medicine and surgery. Examples include specialists in ear surgery (otology), sinus disease (rhinology), allergy, head and neck cancer, voice disorders (laryngology), swallowing disorders, facial plastic surgery, maxillofacial prosthodontics and cosmetic dentistry, and pediatric ENT.

Our physicians have written textbooks, are invited speakers at other universities nationally and internationally, and are recognized by peer publications such as Best Doctors in the U.S. and Best Doctors in the Southeast Region. The care they provide is second to none.

We are aided in our #1 Mission – patient care – by the availability of cutting edge technology that people expect at a university medical center. In addition, our department is actively involved in various areas of research, including hearing loss, swallowing disorders, sinus disease, and cancer. One measure of our research expertise and success is the fact that we are one of the Top 12 ENT departments in the country in National Institutes for Health (NIH) funding. By combining cutting edge technologies with laboratory discoveries, we optimize health and quality of life for our patients. We are further aided in our mission of top quality patient care by our affiliation with hundreds of other medical specialists at MUSC who provide the multidisciplinary approach to certain diseases that can make the critical difference.

Our physicians see patients at four offices: Rutledge Tower (at MUSC), Hollings Cancer Center (at MUSC), East Cooper Medical Arts Building (on the campus of the East Cooper Hospital in Mount Pleasant), and MUSC Specialty North Office (in North Charleston adjacent to Charleston Southern University). In Rutledge Tower and Hollings Cancer Center, we occupy more than 14,000 square feet with 16 examination rooms. Our 3,200 square-foot East Cooper office opened in 2001 and our 3,800 square-foot office in North Charleston opened in 2007. Both offices offer comprehensive services in all areas of ENT, including complete audiology and vestibular testing and hearing aid fitting and services.

We look forward to serving you in the future. As our mission statement affirms, we care for our patients with compassion, efficiency and excellence.

A Reflection
Periodic reflection on the past is integral to gaining perspective on future direction. As we tabulated the department’s recent progress in preparation for a strategic retreat, we saw that much has transpired during the past five years. I am pleased to share a few highlights with you.

Personnel, programs and patients are core to our department. The heart and soul of any department are, of course, faculty. To a solid nucleus of five faculty, 11 outstanding additions have been made since 2000, representing the subspecialties of Head and Neck Oncology, Rhinology, Maxillofacial, Neurotology, Allergy, Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, and Pediatric Otolaryngology. Four doctorate level professionals have also joined the faculty: one in voice and swallowing, one in audiology, one in tumor biology, and one in auditory neuroscience. It is not possible in this short space to say enough good things about these 15 new individuals. Among their many other accomplishments, they have successfully competed for NIH and other government supported funding, worked closely with the Governor’s office on strategies for head and neck cancer prevention in South Carolina, and received both the University’s “Teacher of the Year” and “Clinician of the Year” awards. In short, lofty expectations have been exceeded.

As expected, the expansion in faculty has dramatically increased patient visits (Table I). To accommodate the increased clinical demand for our specialists, two new satellite offices have opened, one in Mt. Pleasant and the other in North Charleston. Our total clinical space now exceeds 20,000 square feet.

A number of new programs and centers of excellence have been established by the faculty. With generous support from the Evelyn Trammell Foundation, the Evelyn Trammell Institute for Voice and Swallowing Disorders was opened in 2001 by Bonnie Martin-Harris, Ph.D. The medical director for the Institute is Lucinda Halstead, M.D. and it includes 15 speech language pathologists and a number of collaborators from GI Medicine. Additional programs include the Head and Neck Cancer Center, directed by Terry Day, M.D.; the Cochlear Implant Center, directed by Ted Meyer, M.D., Ph.D; the Vestibular – Balance Center, directed by Jack King, Ph.D.; the Nose and Sinus Center, directed by Rod Schlosser, M.D.; the Snoring and Disordered Breathing Center, directed by Boyd Gillespie, M.D.; the Airway and Aspiration Center for Children, directed by David White, M.D.; and the Aural Atresia and Microtia Center, directed by Paul Lambert, M.D. These Centers of Excellence have offered superb multidisciplinary clinical care and have provided structure for clinical and basic research and for teaching initiatives.

To accommodate the additional faculty, the department was given new and expanded academic space, totaling more than 7,000 square feet. This consolidated area also includes a new library-conference room for administrative and educational meetings. In 2004, our state-of-the-art Dissection Laboratory opened. This facility was designed for multi-specialty use, including temporal bone, sinus and microvascular surgery. The laboratory has 11 stations, complete with Storz telescopes and hand instruments, Anspach drills, Zeiss microscopes, Gyrus soft tissue shavers/drills and BrainLab image guided equipment.

The department’s growth has allowed our teaching mission to significantly expand, with a number of new CME courses for practitioners and subspecialty conferences for residents. To complement the department’s annual Spoleto Voice Symposium and the Putney Lectureship, the Charleston Magnolia Conference and Charleston Swallowing Conference have been developed. Additional CME activities include the Charleston Sinus Surgery and Temporal Bone courses.

During the past five years, the department’s research activities have expanded and diversified. As shown in Table 2, funding has significantly increased. The Auditory Neuroscience division has a long and successful history of NIH funding, including a Program Project Grant now in its 18th year. The 11 doctorate level professionals and seven master’s level investigators involved in this work continue to develop new initiatives. To this base of research activity, new research funding now supports investigative efforts in swallowing physiology (Bonnie Martin-Harris, Ph.D.) and in head and neck cancer biology (Terry Day, M.D., Boyd Gillespie, M.D., and Rita Young, Ph.D.).  Our NIH support places us 12th nationally for departments of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery.

Hopefully, the highlights noted above convey a sense of the excitement and momentum the department is enjoying. To a large extent, our growth and accomplishments reflect an institutional-wide phenomenon. In this same time period, for example, the MUSC faculty has grown approximately 10 percent; research funding has increased nearly 50 percent (ninth fastest growth in NIH dollars among academic medical cents); and a new hospital has been constructed. All of the above translates into more efficient and innovative patient care. 

Paul R. Lambert, M.D.
Chair, Otolaryngology-Head & Neck surgery