RSM and BSO COVID-19 Otology series: Risks and precautions in otological surgery in the COVID-19 era

Mr Philip Clamp is a Consultant in ENT and Skull Base Surgery at University Hospitals Bristol and Weston. He specialises in adult and paediatric otology, neurotology, balance disorders, hearing implants and lateral skull base surgery.

Mr Clamp is a council member of the Royal Society of Medicine section of Otology, serving as Honorary Secretary for the 2020-2021 academic season. He has twice served on the council of the British Society of Otology.

Mr Clamp received his medical degree from the University of Oxford before completing surgical training throughout the Southwest of England. He was awarded the Royal Society of Medicine Gold Medal in 2012. He undertook a clinical and research fellowship at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital and University of Melbourne (Australia), before returning to Bristol as a sub- specialist consultant in 2014.

Mr Clamp has an interest in medical education and clinical research. He holds an honorary appointment with the University of Bristol.

Professor Douglas Hartley is a Professor of Otology at Nottingham University and a consultant ENT surgeon at Nottingham University Hospital's NHS Trust Queen's Medical Centre. Professor Hartley qualified with distinction from Newcastle Medical School in 1995, and was awarded a DPhil from Oxford University in the field of hearing research in 2001. He worked as a Clinical Lecturer at Oxford University, and was the first recipient of a Wellcome Trust Clinician Scientist Fellowship in Otolaryngology. He spent time as a Surgical Fellow at the Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre, after becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and completing his higher surgical training at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Professor Hartley specialises in Otology, including cochlear implantation. His research team at the NIHR Nottingham Hearing Biomedical Research Centre is interested in developing novel objective measures of hearing loss and communication impairments. They work in collaboration with the Nottingham Auditory Implant Program. He serves on grant review panels for Action on Hearing loss and the NIHR.

Professor Hartley's sub-specialty interests include: Otology & Auditory Implantation, including Cochlear implantation, Bone-Anchored Hearing Aids, Middle-Ear Implants, Ossiculoplasty and Mastoid surgery.

Ms Emma Stapleton is a Consultant Otolaryngologist and Skull Base Surgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary and Salford Royal Hospital, and RCSEd Regional Surgical Adviser for the North West. She is also a member of the RCSEd Committee of Younger Fellows. Her clinical role and research interests include cochlear implantation, complex otology, lateral skull base surgery, NF2 and balance. She is a member of one of the busiest skull base teams in the UK, and enjoys editing roles at ENT UK and ENT and Audiology News magazine. She is Honorary Secretary of the North of England Otolaryngology Society, ENT UK Sepsis Lead, a member of the BACO 2020 Executive Committee, and an active member of the WENTS mentoring group. 

Dr Julian Tang trained in Medicine and Zoology at Cambridge, before completing a Zoology PhD in biological fluid dynamics in Aberdeen. Dr Tang then finished his medical training in Sheffield. After his general medical training, Dr Tang completed his specialist clinical virology training at University College London in 2005. Later the same year, Dr Tang moved to Hong Kong after the SARS 2003 outbreaks, as an assistant professor, developing a clinical and research interest in respiratory viruses, particularly on influenza and its transmission. He moved to Singapore in 2008 as a consultant/ virologist, arriving there just in time for the 2009 A/H1N1 influenza pandemic. There, they built a 1 m diameter schlieren imaging system to visualise human exhaled airflows such as breathing, talking, coughing, sneezing, singing – to aid aerosol infection control guidance. After several years in Singapore, Dr Tang spent a couple of years working in Edmonton, AB, Canada - where they described the first imported, fatal human case of avian A/H5N1 influenza into North America in 2013. He returned to the UK in 2014, settling in Leicester, UK, where he has been running the diagnostic virology laboratory and advising on the clinical management and infection control of viral infections, particularly respiratory viruses, like influenza and SARS-CoV-2 that is causing the current COVID-19 pandemic.