Dr Eric Levi

The academic hospital is a collision of identities and goals. It’s a house of care, a school for learning, and a corporate entity to run. Each of these interests are often in conflict with each other. The KPIs are different. If you want outstanding care, then profits may be affected. If you want high efficiency, then teaching and training may be affected. We need a better way of understanding these systems.

Some life chapters are marked with plaques, awards & bright lights. The best ones are marked with a home made cake shared with the people you love in the frontline trenches of an overbooked cancer clinic between sputum coated flexiscopes and beneath the sounds of stridor and dysphonia. This is my tribe. Those who smile through the challenges with deep compassion and unbelievable competence. Farewell to the beautiful institution that raised me and groomed me.

Drooling is not an uncommon problem. Severe drooling can result in medical, social, psychological and practical complications such as chest infection, skin infection, social embarrassment, device soiling, etc. Here’s a library of resources compiled by the International Sialorrhea Steering Group that could help you start your journey in caring for these patients.

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Had to put my camera on the line for this. On the white traffic line, I mean.

Tonsillitis toppled top tennis player. Tonsillitis is not as benign as some might think. We see patients with systemic sepsis in ICU from complications of tonsillitis. I can talk about many patients who nearly died from their tonsillitis complications. So yes, we still remove tonsils even in adults if necessary.

Airway surgery. These are old metal tracheostomy tubes. We don’t use them anymore. A reminder that things change. How and why we do tracheostomy are always changing.

Last night I was interviewed for a podcast. The other day, I had a TV crew in my private clinic. I believe every clinician should be a master teacher. We should be trained in mastering the skills of being a super communicator. Teaching and engaging media are essential skills.

Every patient has their own story. #

4 lectures, 3 countries, 3 conferences. Time to go back to work.

Crafting my next talk on a topic that is a little uncomfortable but immensely critical for us surgeons who operate regularly on infants.

Drooling is modifiable. Not always curable. The goal is improvement, not perfection. The target for every child and family differs. Note that there are many options. Treatment is tailored to the child. Make sure you are cared for by a multidisciplinary team.

This conference venue is amazing. Putting a scientific conference in an artistic venue just makes the whole thing more palatable. There are so many conference centres that are “sterile”. This one was crafted for arts and music. I feel so much more relaxed being here.

Keep rethinking the basics and readjusting the approach. The way we do medicine today should be different than 10-20 years ago. What I was taught 20 years ago may not be applicable today.

I spent a night In Bruges speaking with a community of Flemish Belgian ENT Surgeons. I found them to be super friendly, amazingly welcoming and completely down to earth. I asked one of them why? He said it was because Belgium has been conquered many times by different peoples so they have to be adaptable. I have a different theory. I think it’s because they have the world’s best chocolate, waffle, beer and Frikandel. Who wouldn’t be happy?

Put the patient first, and you will never stop changing. There is always a way to do it better.

“Why remove tonsils? They must be there for a reason?” Of course, we do not remove any healthy body parts. We only remove them if they are diseased or cause disease. Appendix, thyroid, lymph nodes, lungs, even parts of brain are removed if there is disease in them. We remove tonsils for cancer, malignancy, severe obstruction, severe recurrent infection, etc. And believe it or not, there’s plenty of tonsillar lymphoid tissue still left behind. More in my Lectures on Spotify.

Nosebleeds. The bleeding blood vessel hardly ever comes from the top. Stop pressing the top of your nose because it does nothing. Here’s my son’s nose. The blood vessel almost always start from the floor of the nose and goes up the centre wall (septum). Press low on the floor and the septum. Don’t look up. Look down.

There are many reasons why a child may require a tracheostomy (breathing tube through the neck). Each child is unique. Here is one child with a tracheostomy being capped enjoying a big burger in clinic. A delight to my heart.

Surgery is teamwork. That’s me and the team harvesting a radial forearm free flap for a head and neck reconstruction. Remember that we often only see the glorious images of surgery. You don’t see the sacrifices behind the scenes. The thousands of hours of training and being oncall. The thousands of missed family dinners, anniversaries, parties, kids’ school performances, etc. The knife cuts both ways. The knife cuts the patient and the surgeon.

Oh no. Giraffe must be in surgery now.

Can someone call spine please? Anyone got a long c-collar handy?

My current Fellow is an ENT surgeon from Saudi Arabia. She went home for Ramadan and returned with some delicious goodies. I love world cuisines. We live in a colourful planet. If only we could see that our differences are strength, not a point of friction.

There are many uses of in . Here are a few: spasmodic dysphonia, sialorrhoea, cricopharyngeal spasm, gustatory sweating, vasomotor rhinitis, chronic cough, chronic migraine, facial aesthetic, etc. I’ve used botox on 7-month-olds and 70-year-olds. It’s useful in the right patient for the right reason.