Latest / Voices of Otolaryngology / Hat Trick: Global Outreach, Research, and Clinical Care
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to the Voices of Otolaryngology podcast series, where we spotlight
- 0:05diverse perspectives and insights within the field of otolaryngology.
- 0:08I'm your host, Rahul Shah.
- 0:10Let's jump into it.
- 0:13Welcome to Voices of Otolaryngology.
- 0:15We are closing up the expo floor.
- 0:18It's Monday,
- 0:18October 13th in Indianapolis, and I'm meeting a new friend, Greg Basura.
- 0:22That's right.
- 0:23Gregor. Gregory.
- 0:24Greg. Gregory, if I'm in trouble.
- 0:26All right, Greg. I hope I’m not in trouble.
- 0:27No. We just have gratitude for you today.
- 0:29Really helping with our international work.
- 0:31It's pretty awesome. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
- 0:33So I'm currently a professor of Otology/Neurotology
- 0:36at University of Pittsburgh. I just moved there a year ago.
- 0:38I was on faculty, University of Michigan for 12 years and made a jump.
- 0:42And have a year before that.
- 0:44So before that I did fellowship in Michigan,
- 0:46and then I did my residency at Carolina Cadet School in Seattle.
- 0:50Cool.
- 0:50So I'm a PhD and, currently,
- 0:54in the Division of Otology/Neurotology and I share my time.
- 0:57I basically have three full time hats clinical.
- 0:59I have an NIH funded lab and R01 grant.
- 1:02And then I have, I'm the current, lead for, global outreach in the department.
- 1:08Wow. And you wear an academy hat..
- 1:10I wear an academy hat.
- 1:11I'm currently the humanitarian efforts committee chair for one more year.
- 1:14I've.
- 1:15I've had that, phenomenal post for the last three years,
- 1:18and I've got one more year and I'll, I'll, chair Alex Ryan Belcher
- 1:23from Vanderbilt will take over the reins, next fall in Los Angeles.
- 1:28So we have a wellness zone back here.
- 1:30You might be someone who needs that. You're doing so much work.
- 1:32I gotta get you some massage, too.
- 1:34I was hoping that, you know, maybe some of my academy dues could go towards that.
- 1:37It sure does.
- 1:38It sure does.
- 1:39We take care of our people.
- 1:40Most, most definitely.
- 1:42So what was your a PhD in?
- 1:45Anatomy and cell biology.
- 1:46But it was, all neuroscience.
- 1:48My thesis was in Parkinson's disease.
- 1:50Oh, wow.
- 1:51Looking at, alternative neurotransmitters
- 1:55to, substitute
- 1:56dopamine to reregulate a basal ganglia that gets dysfunction.
- 2:00And that was at Seattle.
- 2:01That was actually a Wayne State school of Medicine in Detroit.
- 2:03It's terrific. Yeah. Very cool.
- 2:05And you're not too far from that Otology/Neurotology.
- 2:08What's your, Ro1 fund in?
- 2:10So the R01 funding is so basically two things.
- 2:12One is to objectify human tinnitus this using innovative brain imaging
- 2:17using functional near infrared spectroscopy.
- 2:20Basically that's. Whoa.
- 2:21Go back. Hold on. I got the word objective.
- 2:23Yeah, it's very important.
- 2:24Hold on.
- 2:24I think I got to say one more time to objectify- Objectify human tinnitus
- 2:29in the human brain.
- 2:30So we know that tinnitus or phantom sound
- 2:33in the absence of a sound stimulus is a brain phenomena.
- 2:37The brain is doing that. And so you want to image that.
- 2:39And I'm trying to objectify a subjective problem
- 2:42using a noninvasive brain imaging technique.
- 2:45Yeah.
- 2:46Called FNIRS or functional near
- 2:49infrared spectroscopy, which is basically yeah, pulse oximetry for the brain.
- 2:53We use hemoglobin concentration as a So you put something here. Yep.
- 2:58EEGs style opto.
- 3:00So it has infrared light into the brain.
- 3:03And then I can measure hemoglobin concentration under different conditions
- 3:08of stimuli. Incredible. What are you starting to see?
- 3:10So we're starting to see phenomenal things.
- 3:11So I was a basic scientist before that.
- 3:13We used to say two neural correlates of tinnitus in our models.
- 3:16One is increased spontaneous firing on the auditory pathway on its own.
- 3:21This this increased spontaneous firing.
- 3:23We found this.
- 3:24It's called central gain, usually in response to hearing loss.
- 3:28That byproducts of what we think people hear.
- 3:30But then the second neural correlate is neural synchrony.
- 3:32So misery loves company.
- 3:34Neurons are not only firing spontaneously, they're firing together. Wow.
- 3:38So in the human brain we never had a lunch.
- 3:41So I had my hypothosis was that's happening in the human brain.
- 3:44And lo
- 3:44and behold, and the avatar of cortex I can measure when someone has tinnitus,
- 3:48that their cortical function in silence is at a higher basal rate
- 3:53than someone who doesn’t have tinnitus.
- 3:56And so we're measuring that and we're doing some different things
- 3:59was what's called somatosensory tinnitus which is, a different bird.
- 4:03But it's people that have bad jaws or teeth, neck whiplash injury.
- 4:09They can have tinnitus without hearing loss.
- 4:10And because the somatosensory circuits feed into the brainstem auditory circuit.
- 4:15So they can they can modulate their tinnitus
- 4:17by moving their head and the tennis goes up or down.
- 4:21So we're now we're we're objectifying that as well.
- 4:23So the goal here is to find the key parts of the brain that are bearings
- 4:28and then target that with some retroactive animal studies of living it,
- 4:32neurophysiology, neuropharmacology and even some retraining,
- 4:36devices to retrain the circuit.
- 4:40I got a man. Give me five, I understand it.
- 4:42What a great, great description.
- 4:44That is super incredible, super incredible.
- 4:46Exciting, really exciting and obviously clinically applicable.
- 4:49So Doctor Basura that's amazing.
- 4:51And I always love learning about our guests.
- 4:53And congratulations, you are on the young side
- 4:56to be a full professor and you've been granted funding.
- 4:58That's that's phenomenal.
- 4:59Congrats on that.
- 5:00Thank you.
- 5:00Your passion. One of them is humanitarian work.
- 5:03Absolutely.
- 5:03You've done an incredible amount of work.
- 5:06Yeah.
- 5:07Yeah.
- 5:08How? Why? Tell me some stories.
- 5:10Well I my first experience was with Brent Senior,
- 5:12Brent Seniors is a rhinologist, he’s been going Vietnam for 15, 20 years.
- 5:17And my first experience in global
- 5:20biomedicine was with him going to View Nam.
- 5:22Hanoi.
- 5:23As a resident, as a chief resident at UNC.
- 5:26So 2005?
- 5:28No. This was 2009. No.
- 5:30I graduated in ten.
- 5:32So my fall of nine, going into my last year.
- 5:36And what I learned from that experience was from him, is he been going there is.
- 5:40So you graduate residency what year? 2010.
- 5:43And you became a full professor when?
- 5:45Just last year.
- 5:47It's like one of the fastest pathways, man.
- 5:49Oh, it's a nice time to tenure.
- 5:50I love it at two amazing institutions, Michigan and Pitt. Wow.
- 5:54Thank you.
- 5:54Congrats.
- 5:55It's incredible what I, What I appreciated with Brent's
- 5:58work was the connections
- 6:00he made with international partners and how they can learn from each other
- 6:04and the contributions he could make and the things that he could
- 6:07show them to expand their skill set and how they could manage patients.
- 6:10So you start in Vietnam, Vietnam, and. Then right there.
- 6:13Then I went to a fellowship, and I knew right away,
- 6:15I'm going to be I'm going to build this.
- 6:17This is to me part of my career.
- 6:19And so when I graduated, fellowship started faculty in August of 2012.
- 6:24At Michigan?
- 6:25At Michigan, I jumped right into humanitarian work.
- 6:29What do you mean, jumped in?
- 6:30People always say how do I get involved in the academy?
- 6:32So how did you jump in?
- 6:34So first thing I did was there was a private group,
- 6:37Kenya Relief, which is an organization that was going to Kenya.
- 6:41Is really not affiliated an organization, an academic organization.
- 6:44So I thought, okay, I'm going to go with them and see what that's all about.
- 6:47So we went to Western Kenya. Small.
- 6:51How did you find this group?
- 6:52Oh, they they, one of their main, one of their main advocates
- 6:56was a nurse of Michigan.
- 6:57Oh fine, so your network?
- 6:58it was right there.
- 6:59So you had the bug? I Found it right there.
- 7:02So you weren't looking for head and neck. You weren't looking for Otology.
- 7:04You said, I'm going to do medical missionary. I mean, you a medical mission.
- 7:07So you went to I went to Kenya.
- 7:09We went out to the small,
- 7:11clinic out in the middle of
- 7:12Western Kenya, Migori, near Lake Victoria.
- 7:15And that's more of a what we call a mission trip for.
- 7:17We dropped in, we did cases.
- 7:18So what we were really training people and then we leave.
- 7:23And I really reflected on my experience and I thought okay that's phenomenal.
- 7:26We're actually we're servicing and we're helping a needed community.
- 7:30But I, I thought to myself, I want I want a true partnership.
- 7:34I want what Brent Senior has. I want.
- 7:36We all want what Brant Senior has.
- 7:38Do you want to grow up to be Brent Senior?
- 7:39Well, yes I do.
- 7:40Yes, sir, I we love that guy.
- 7:42Yeah. So so the idea was okay.
- 7:44That's wonderful what they're doing.
- 7:45But that's not exactly what I'm looking at. Okay. Sure.
- 7:48So it turns out University of Michigan in obstetrics
- 7:51and gynecology have been going to this place called Cath Hospital.
- 7:54Buddy, you're an otolaryngologist. You're hanging out with OBs?
- 7:57Well, well.
- 7:58All right, so Vietnam, then. Kenya. Kenya.
- 8:00But now you found Ghana?
- 8:02No, no, no, I found Ghana, okay? In Kumasi.
- 8:05The obstetrics department at in Michigan have been going to this hospital in
- 8:10in Ghana for 30 years.
- 8:12How did you find that out?
- 8:13Just talk it out now.
- 8:14Through my chairman and, One of my one of my faculty admission.
- 8:17So you start again using your network. That's right. Using the network.
- 8:20Absolutely.
- 8:20So I went over there as, as, basically,
- 8:24needs assessment and they had a residency there at Cath Hospital.
- 8:29So two attendings training residents in an otolaryngology department.
- 8:33Oh, cool. What they needed most was ear surgery.
- 8:36So I'm a I'm a neurotologist. I'm an otologist.
- 8:39And, like, perfect.
- 8:40So we go over there, we build them a temporal bone lab.
- 8:43We start giving.
- 8:44I give their first temporal bone course- You mean built them a temporal?
- 8:47You thought about it here, what you needed,
- 8:49and you came there and set it up?
- 8:51So we got some small funding from the department and matching funds from the.
- 8:54Foot pedal drill. Microscopic drill.
- 8:58You know, the little instruments they need?
- 9:01Yeah, yeah, we went in there, built a two station temporal bone lab.
- 9:04Amazing.
- 9:05And we took a microscope into the O.R.
- 9:07for that.
- 9:08So our first week over there was.
- 9:10Okay, let's let's do some temporal bone teaching.
- 9:12Let's teach in the clinic on good
- 9:15ear exams, and they will do some basic cases.
- 9:18So that that lasted for three years.
- 9:20Mastoid basic cases? Yeah.
- 9:22And so that evolved over three years.
- 9:24We were going twice a year.
- 9:26And I realized after our third year that we weren't making the traction
- 9:30or the, the.
- 9:32Impact that you wanted? Correct.
- 9:34And there are many reasons that probably go beyond our time here.
- 9:38But what I realized was
- 9:40I’m a fellowship training neurotologist
- 9:43after five years of residency, I did two years of fellowship.
- 9:47I would argue
- 9:47that folks in the developing world, they need as much training as possible
- 9:51because a lot of their residency training is is, you know, it's very cursory.
- 9:56So I realize this after, you know, it's not taking hold in that model.
- 10:00So we learned that model was not ideal to get them where they needed to be.
- 10:05And we got to build fellowships.
- 10:07So I started thinking, okay, there's only so many places in Africa
- 10:10where they have the infrastructure and the
- 10:12and that there are capable instructors to do this.
- 10:15So I looked north, I looked into Egypt, I went to the University of Alexandria
- 10:19to pitch the idea of a fellowship, and they loved it.
- 10:23I wrote up, I wrote up the whole proposal I gave it to the university.
- 10:26Done.
- 10:27They got two professors there.
- 10:28They're otology trained.
- 10:30I identified the first fellow from northern Ghana.
- 10:33I had partners that were going to come in.
- 10:35I was going to be going out great.
- 10:36And then the Pandemic blew the whole thing up.
- 10:39So as the pandemic,
- 10:40we emerged from the pandemic, most of the key players had moved away.
- 10:45And so it actually had been dismantled.
- 10:46It, so I called my old friend, I saw an old friend, Yohan Fagan,
- 10:50University of Cape Town, South Africa.
- 10:52Celebrated as a living legend. That's right.
- 10:55Did you get to see that at the opening ceremony?
- 10:57Absolutely.
- 10:58And and let me just diverge in a minute and say, no one deserves that more than
- 11:03Doctor Fagan. Incredible. It's just amazing.
- 11:05We agree. We agree.
- 11:0620 years of heading that fellowship.
- 11:08So he had he had built the fellowship modeling app.
- 11:13And and so I called him and said, Johan, we need to build you need to build it.
- 11:17An otology fellowship. And
- 11:18he's like, well, right.
- 11:19We're actually we're about to launch it.
- 11:21I said, are you kidding me?
- 11:22And said, yeah, we're in communications with MED-EL.
- 11:24They're going to fund it.
- 11:25Tashneem Harris is she's the otology-fellowship
- 11:29trained faculty on the ground.
- 11:33And I said, Johan, I want to be involved! He said absolutely.
- 11:35So Tashneem and I teamed up and our first fellow started in March of 2022.
- 11:41And the fellowship is based where!
- 11:43In Cape Town, South Africa at the University of Cape Town.
- 11:45And it's a one year fellowship.
- 11:48And who's it open to?
- 11:49So it's open to only Africans.
- 11:50Yeah.
- 11:51Has to be an African physician with a gentleman or gentlewoman's agreement
- 11:54that they're going to go back to their home country. Sure.
- 11:57So we are now.
- 11:58So it's a one year dedicated fellowship.
- 12:00They - MED-EL pays the stipend.
- 12:02They give ten cochliar implants free implants for their fellowship.
- 12:06Tashneen trains them on a week to week basis
- 12:09every Friday for the last nearly three, well three years now.
- 12:12Over three, almost four years in March next year,
- 12:16I do a Zoom lecture every Friday morning at five thirty, six thirty in the morning.
- 12:19So we're on Zoom every Friday doing.
- 12:22Lectures, and I kind of have a curriculum.
- 12:24Who’s attending that lecture?
- 12:25So the fellow,
- 12:26the Cape Town residents and then and Brad Welling from Harvard has joined me.
- 12:31And that's just a small group of us.
- 12:33How many residents do they have?
- 12:35Well, they're spread out.
- 12:36So on the otology service, so maybe 1 or 2?
- 12:39You're absolutely amazing.
- 12:41Every other Friday or every Friday.
- 12:43Every Friday, every Friday you're up at five in the morning, 530,
- 12:47to give a lecture to two people. Absolutely.
- 12:49Every Friday. That's amazing. Every Friday.
- 12:51You know what pisses me off?
- 12:52Some people like, oh, I want the auditorium filled.
- 12:54I want 100 people.
- 12:56You're doing this for two people that impact thousands of lives!
- 12:59Absolutely. And what they do is it's bidirectional.
- 13:01A course that they have questions! Absolutely.
- 13:03“Dr Basrura, I did this this week...” Weekend or I'm
- 13:07another current fellow she's at Greg, we have an interesting case.
- 13:09Can we move moving on and then we'll go back and forth.
- 13:12What a treat.
- 13:13But then I have I have audiologists giving lectures, vestibular lectures - I have
- 13:17and then the otology residents on the service.
- 13:20They're required.
- 13:22As I've started in Pittsburgh, the otology residents on service
- 13:25have to give a lecture and then the fellow fellowship for our fellow.
- 13:29They have to give two lectures per year.
- 13:31So I've got - Have you ever thought about this.
- 13:34The irony of what you wanted to do in Alexandria, Egypt, got interrupted
- 13:38by the pandemic, but the pandemic has now facilitated global learning.
- 13:42That ironic?
- 13:42The cool thing about this is now we have a sustainable,
- 13:47tried and true model for fellowship training in the low net income countries.
- 13:51And the cool thing now is Amina Seguya, the current fellow from Uganga
- 13:56So our first fellow from Zimbabwe, second from Ghana, third from Kenya,
- 14:00current from Uganda.
- 14:02She's going back in her home country.
- 14:04And her home institution just gave her the green light to be the second
- 14:08fellowship on the path to be the second, second fellowship center for otology.
- 14:13Whoa whoa whoa.
- 14:15She's going back to where to back to Uganda.
- 14:17How did they give the green light, competence and all you have?
- 14:20And plus one of Johan Sagan's old fellows is there, and he started a fellowship
- 14:25and he'd already gone through the process to the academics.
- 14:28So. Oh, so. They need you as you can. Oh.
- 14:30So now the otology fellowship is following suit.
- 14:33So now you'll have fellowship train ontologies.
- 14:37They're starting a fellowship in Africa.
- 14:39Then they must have the analog of our academy.
- 14:42Is that what you're getting at? Somebody has to stand that's like that.
- 14:45So great question. So now we take it one step further.
- 14:47So I knew that fellowships would be popping up.
- 14:51So as, almost two years ago, in November of 23, I bought a domain.
- 14:56I started up the African Otological Society - a
- 14:59once a month virtual society just started from scratch.
- 15:03We just had our 20th meeting, two weeks ago with the idea.
- 15:07And how many folks attended? There's about 50 on the call.
- 15:10Oh my gosh.
- 15:10And there's over 200 that are registered on our site.
- 15:12Oh Lord!
- 15:14And the goal of that is, is to one create capacity and community on the climate to.
- 15:20So we now we know who's doing what.
- 15:21So each year each - at each month,
- 15:24a new country presents their otology and audiology capacity.
- 15:27But you also understand what's going on at a macro level.
- 15:31Absolutely.
- 15:31But what I also wanted it to become is some kind of
- 15:35umbrella society to start legitimizing fellowships.
- 15:38So that's where it's going.
- 15:39So now the charge I have on me is to push it to the next level.
- 15:45And be some kind of standardizing body, which I'm working on that now because
- 15:50the dangers of people doing training in some place and said,
- 15:53oh, I did a fellowship. You have to be careful.
- 15:55We want to make sure that the training is legitimate and standard.
- 15:59That we're meeting, you know, metrics.
- 16:01Like the name escaped me, and I want to acknowledge our colleague
- 16:04who is the lead otologist in Cape Town, that.
- 16:09Tashneem Harris.
- 16:11Doctor Harris, Doctor Harris, Doctor Harris.
- 16:13Well kudos to Doctor Harris for taking that plunge.
- 16:17Yeah she's amazing.
- 16:18This podcast is called “Voices of Otolaryngology.”
- 16:20Maybe “Global Voices” or “Voices of Global Otolaryngology”.
- 16:23We should edit it.
- 16:24Yeah.
- 16:24Talk to me about the incidence and prevalence
- 16:27of ear disease on the African continent.
- 16:30How does it differ? There's regional differences.
- 16:32We know that across the world.
- 16:33But just a little bit just to educate, our mostly domestic listeners.
- 16:37Certainly. So so it's far and wide.
- 16:39So the big issue when we talk about chronic otitis media,
- 16:43usually it's it's either infectious or it's often caused by an underlying
- 16:46cholesteatoma, which is a fancy word for skin in the wrong place.
- 16:50And that we're still seeing that. Absolutely.
- 16:52So you see a lot of chronic ear disease in those pharynx where either,
- 16:56some parts of Africa, particularly in Ghana where I was, was more Congenital?
- 17:00It was there's some congenital, but there's also acquired.
- 17:03I’ve seen adults that’ve acquired ear disease when they get infection.
- 17:06You still see TB.
- 17:08So the other issue is in Africa, where in the States - How does that manifest?
- 17:13So TB in the ear they can have tuberculosis in the ear.
- 17:15So you can have draining ears.
- 17:17It's still a basically infected by TB.
- 17:19So what is this surgical algorithm for that?
- 17:22I don't know. Yeah. It's usually not so much surgical.
- 17:25So treat topically or with other types of has got.
- 17:28So but you have to recognize it. Absolutely.
- 17:31So ear disease is prevalent.
- 17:32So there's different genetic forms of disease.
- 17:34There's congenital disease.
- 17:36But a lot of adults deal
- 17:37with the sequelae from from pediatric disease and never got.
- 17:41So they have perforated drum subtotal drum perforation.
- 17:44You're going to get an acquired cholesteatoma ingrowth- Absolutely.
- 17:47So a lot of this is aquired and the pathologists- They just live with it!
- 17:51They do they do.
- 17:52So in part some of the things they again
- 17:55is, is it's ironic to say this, but many of them have a subtotal perforation.
- 18:00But that's actually good because they exactly it's exterior.
- 18:02Right. Exactly.
- 18:03So they don't actually trap- Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
- 18:06And so because I've seen devastating cases where they've actually
- 18:10patients have succumbed to meningitis or brain abscess.
- 18:14So there's a whole spectrum of disease, which is why we call it chronic otitis
- 18:18media by.
- 18:19But the issue now is, is the implant,
- 18:22the implant companies funding the fellowship.
- 18:27But the goals of the eventually implant surgeons.
- 18:30But well we're using implant companies for is to train
- 18:33the cord become chronic ear surgery.
- 18:35So it's a wonderful way for private
- 18:38industry to partner in the educational opportunity.
- 18:42But were true. But we're actually actually.
- 18:45(inaudible) which is amazing.
- 18:46As implant technologies evolving so quickly.
- 18:49And there's wireless, there's phones.
- 18:52How you and I did implants and the maintenance of that
- 18:54is going to be very different ten years from now.
- 18:56So they can probably control one from California.
- 18:58Yeah. Absolutely.
- 18:59So so it's really exciting to see where this is going.
- 19:02And I think that I'm so excited to see.
- 19:05So what's amazing about like being here, the Academy and being involved
- 19:08with the mentoring efforts and a visiting scholar. Hold on.
- 19:11That's a pin. What does that.
- 19:12And so this pin is you want to show you the camera.
- 19:14And right here is the represents the Eugene Myers Global Education Fund.
- 19:18So I just saw Doctor Myers walk in the hallway. Yep.
- 19:21So 91 years old. And he still
- 19:25travels the world.
- 19:25So I can't say enough about what he's done.
- 19:28But this Pin represents a fund
- 19:31that was named after him based on his legacy of global outreach,
- 19:36so that our international partners in low and middle
- 19:40income countries get you have the capacity to come to academy.
- 19:44Have you see some of your colleagues from Africa that got the Gene Myers Fund?
- 19:48Absolutely. And they're here now.
- 19:49Is that like a circle? Absolutely.
- 19:51And they're actually on the African Otological Society calls.
- 19:54So it's really amazing. Awesome to connect.
- 19:56And then this week I've actually met
- 19:58some of my colleagues face to face for the first time
- 20:00that I've always seen on the screen.
- 20:01Did you meet one of your fellows here?
- 20:04Oh yeah.
- 20:04One of the fellows future fellow, our next fellows.
- 20:07It is our honor next to high five to that!
- 20:09Our next fellow.
- 20:10You actually met him here in Indianapolis? She's here.
- 20:13So she's here.
- 20:14She'll be starting in January, heading. All the lectures.
- 20:16And she goes home and she's ready is right.
- 20:18So do you go back and operate now or take your residence there?
- 20:23I don't think so.
- 20:23Because your programs evolved where you might go back to,
- 20:27help from a programmatic administrative view.
- 20:31Yeah. So.
- 20:31Well, I.so for Cape Town, I go twice a year, but I train the,
- 20:33I train the fellow in the temporal bone lab with advanced skull base.
- 20:37So I teach you more, I bring it on, I teach, and I do advanced
- 20:40neurotologic things because, yeah, you get a new tumor,
- 20:43but they may have to do advanced cholesteatoma.
- 20:45And you can look at some cases while you're there and help.
- 20:47So think about it. Absolutely.
- 20:48But the neat thing now is, my Chair, José Zevallos, is from yes, is Peruvian.
- 20:53So I just got back from Peru, Lima.
- 20:56So we are going to build the same platform.
- 20:58We just have at Cape Town in Lima.
- 21:01So that's the next plan for us is to take the same blueprint
- 21:06hybrid virtual, all these different things we have
- 21:08that's called the Brothers Brothers Foundation in Pittsburgh.
- 21:11They help distribute instruments.
- 21:13And they take that blueprint now,
- 21:16which is battle tested in Cape Town,
- 21:19and apply it to our next location so we can create
- 21:23long term partnership, increase their capacity, and then they can
- 21:27and they can enhance their training them and their ultimately their patient care.
- 21:32As we start wrapping up, let's get to the why
- 21:36not why you
- 21:37do it, but tell our audience why should they get involved?
- 21:40And how?
- 21:42it's always intimidating.
- 21:43It started from one guy who listened to an OR nurse who went to Kenya, who said,
- 21:48all right, and then you talk to the OBs You ended up in Ghana.
- 21:51I mean - It's a journey.
- 21:53I think it's a journey.
- 21:54I think that I think for me, you know, there's always been
- 21:58an overwhelming desire to contribute and contribute at a higher level.
- 22:02And I think that the I think what's so amazing about our field,
- 22:06and in otolaryngology is: I think it attracts people that want to contribute.
- 22:11I think it's a wonderful as you mentioned, we have such as amazing specialty,
- 22:16because I think it attracts people that want to give.
- 22:19And I think that so that I think that desire is already there.
- 22:23So what you need to do is how do you put it into action?
- 22:26And so I think this is where things like Humanitarian Efforts
- 22:28Committee is so important, where we have, our travel grant.
- 22:32Right. So these are the trainees.
- 22:33And what we do is we fund them an opportunity to go and have an experience.
- 22:38So we give them their real - many scientists, their first experience.
- 22:41And who are we funding with that?
- 22:43We're funding usually residents.
- 22:45US residents. Yes. Right.
- 22:46Oh I see to give them exposure? Absolutely.
- 22:48To get the “Basura bug.” Does anyone call it that?
- 22:52“Basura bug”?
- 22:53Well, you know, my last name means “garbage” in Spanish.
- 22:55Lo siento.
- 22:56But you're not Spanish, are you not? I'm not. Okay.
- 22:58And that'd be tied.
- 22:59So the “Basura bug.” That's right.
- 23:01Yeah, but it's so they.
- 23:03Can have their brand senior moment. Yeah.
- 23:05And awesome.
- 23:06It's - how many grants did you all give out?
- 23:09We had, let's see, we had eight I think this.
- 23:12Super cool. This. Yeah.
- 23:13And not all of them are going to convert over.
- 23:15But you're giving them an exposure.
- 23:17That's right. Absolutely.
- 23:18So the hope is I think when you ask like “how?”
- 23:21I think us, it's like we provide the opportunity.
- 23:24So we take that inherent curiosity to contribute and channel it and say,
- 23:30well here, here's an opportunity and then see where it takes us.
- 23:33And I think that
- 23:35That’s what we do.
- 23:35I think that's is if we continue to provide opportunities,
- 23:40we're going to have more and more people engaged.
- 23:42Building these lifelong journeys is lifelong partnerships as well.
- 23:45The I mean, the dividends are immeasurable.
- 23:48I cannot wait to repeat this with you in about nine months or years.
- 23:52See where you are.
- 23:52I'd love to hear the progress you're making.
- 23:54You're starting to scale it.
- 23:55You're starting to go to another continent.
- 23:57That's insane.
- 23:58And I want to keep up on your,
- 24:01R01 work because that's actually pretty exciting.
- 24:03And I love how you're you're tackling the big problems of of moving,
- 24:06and you're looking at the brain at a different level with the functional.
- 24:10I are.
- 24:10Absolutely right.
- 24:11Pleasure to meet you. Congratulations on all your work.
- 24:13Thank you. I made a new friend. Thank you! I appreciate it.
- 24:16Thank you.
- 24:17We hope today's episode sparked some fresh ideas.
- 24:20If it resonated with you, please subscribe and share it with friends.
- 24:24Have thoughts or suggestions?
- 24:25Use the feedback form in the show notes.
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- 24:30for highlights, behind the scenes content and updates.
- 24:34Thanks for listening. See you next time!