What Do ENT Doctors Do?

When I created this website a few months ago a friend of mine, who is a CEO of a well-known health care company in Atlanta, admonished me to put a blog on the website which outlined everything ENT doctors do. He has referred me several patients for different kinds of problems and almost all of them say they had no idea that an ENT doctor was the right doc for their problem..

My friend is right. Many patients come to us with one kind of issue, such as a voice or a throat problem, but have no idea that we treat other very different things such as hearing aids/hearing loss, head and neck cancer, or allergy and sinus disorders. So the first few blog posts will talk about each of the different things ENT doctors do. This first post will just have a list of all the different things we do and then we'll have additional blog posts to cover each of the topics in a bit more depth.

1. Sinus and allergy disorders. This is a very common problem throughout the Southeast. Atlanta has often been called the "City in a Forest." It is a beautiful city indeed but being so close to all the trees and grasses brings out the allergies and sinus problems. Many patients I see say they never had any sinus or allergy problems until they moved to Atlanta. I have the same story myself. Treatment options include allergy medications, immunotherapy (allergy testing and shots) or surgery including both office procedures and surgery in the operating room. Most sinus problems can be treated without surgery.

2. Hearing loss and other ear problems. We a complete offering of audiology services including hearing testing, tympanometry and otoacoustic emissions. Our audiologist are the best fitters of hearing aids in Atlanta. When necessary we perform surgery on the ear canal, eardrum and middle ear.

3. Voice and throat problems. This includes everything from taking care of singers to diagnosing and treating head and neck cancer.

4. Head and Neck Surgery - this includes surgery on the thyroid and parathyroid glands, salivary glands, and cancer surgery.

5. Pediatrics. Pediatric ear nose and throat issues most commonly involved tonsillitis and ear infections. It also includes voice disorders and children. Our pediatric ENT often sees newborns in the office to clip a tongue tie so they can feed more easily

What I love about the specialty is that we can see patient's from 2 weeks old to 92 years old. We cover many medical fields of practice including allergy/immunology, endocrinology, neurology and gastroenterology.