JLO Visiting Professor: Magic of middle ear surgery

Dr Duane Mol is an Otologist in full time private practice in Johannesburg, South Africa at the Ear and Eye Clinic.

His main interests are middle ear surgery incl Ossiculoplasty, Stapedotomy, Congenital middle ear abnormalities, GIC restorative hearing techniques, powered middle ear implants, cochlea implants and surgery to repair Microtia/Atresia.

He is a past president of the South African Cochlea Implant Society.

He also is a past South African Stage Magic Champion, a title he held for 4 years.

Joined the Otology group of the Causse Ear Clinic in Colombiers, France on January 1991.  Since then he is otologist surgeon with special interest on stapes surgery and ossicular reconstruction of the middle ear. He has performed more than 7300 operations for otosclerosis, more than 4000 operations for ossicular reconstruction and more than 260 operations for congenital malformation of the ossicular chain.

Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeon of Edinburgh (UK)

on September 2005 and Honorary Member of the Indian Society of Otology on November 2006.

Member of several ENT societies such as the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS), the European Academy of Otology & Neuro-Otology (EAONO), the Otosclerosis Study Group, the Prosper Meniere Society, the Mediterraneen Society of Otology and the Politzer Society.

Since 2005 he is the General Secretary and co-founder of the Live International

Otolaryngology Network (LION: www.lion-web.org) which is promoting free HD videoconferencing advanced e-learning program on middle ear surgery. Live surgery is broadcasted every year from several well known Institutions worldwide including the Causse Ear Clinic.

He was Instructor at the AAO-HNS for many years. On October 4 2009 he has been awarded by the Board of Directors of the AAO-HNS a certificate of honor for exceptional services in the scientific program continuing education courses and instructional courses of this Society.

He is on the editorial board of several scientific journals such as the Otology & Neurotology Journal, the Journal of the Mediterraneen Society of Otology, and also serves as a reviewer for a number of professional publications.

Since 21 years he runs a annual advanced otology course in June at the Causse Ear Clinic where delegates from all parts of the world are participating every year.

He is a yearly invited guest speaker and guest surgeon in many countries worldwide and has designed several middle ear prostheses and published new techniques in ossicular reconstruction.

He has published many publications on middle ear surgery in several scientific journals and wrote chapters in several books on surgical technique in Otology.

James graduated from Oxford University Medical School in 1995, and was appointed as a consultant ENT surgeon at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford in 2007.  He was awarded the Gold Medal for outstanding performance from the Royal Society of Medicine.  He has a strong academic background as an MRC funded clinical research fellow, leading to an award of a PhD in 2003, and he is an Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in the University of Oxford.

He has spent 1 year training at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, Australia, where he specialised in the full range of children’s ENT treatment including paediatric airway assessment and treatment, cleft palate clinics, paediatric voice clinics, paediatric head & neck surgery, cochlear implantation and the assessment of profound hearing loss.

A further fellowship in The University of Toronto, Canada, in 2007 developed expertise in advanced neuro-otology including the management of vertigo, middle ear disease, and hearing loss, as well as experience in paediatric ENT at Sick Kids Hospital, Toronto. 

James is a consultant at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.  He performs more than 60 cochlear implant surgeries per year, 15 Bone Anchored Hearing aid implants, and around 100 major ear operations per year, as well as many childrens’ surgeries.  He provides consulting services to the Oxford Children’s Hospital, as well as treatment of premature babies and neonates with ENT conditions.

Arriving in Burton upon Trent, in 1991 John found the ENT Department Daily Mail front page news with the headline “152 weeks to wait”, just the ammunition needed to persuade a panicked Management to invest heavily in ENT.

Gynae colleagues had one of the first UK KTP lasers. They deemed it too big and noisy. Friendship with the Hospital Electricians ensured that his newly equipped theatre had the “only suitable power supply” so it was re-tasked for stapes and cholesteatoma surgery.

John encountered a young French Surgeon, Robert Vincent, in a bar in Beziers, John Osborne, descending a Swiss black run, and Chris Aldren on a Devon beach. The Practical Application of New Techniques in Otology Course followed along with over 20 annual Causse Clinic International Otology Meetings. Chris improved upon the PANTO Meetings by creating the acclaimed International AMES Otology Course.

The Live International Otolayryngology Network (LION) was conceived in 2002 when they were joined by Wilko Grolman, and others. The last transmission was to 93 countries.

John has represented colleagues politically and educationally at UK, College, Government and international levels. 12 years were spent, first at EUFOS then on the Executive of EAORL-HNS. As Treasurer of CEORL-HNS he oversaw it’s ambition to bring 61 European organisations and societies under one umbrella in 2015 and has a combined membership of over 50,000.