HEALTH SERVICES & EDUCATION

Background: The American Neurotology Society (ANS) is the national professional society that was created to provide education, present research and discuss needs for the field of neurotology, a subspecialty of otolaryngology. The field is predominately male. In 2017, female members from ANS, created a separate group named Women in Neurotology (WiN). With the formation of this group, an informal survey was created by four WiN members to capture demographic, academic and career information in an effort to understand who made up this group. The survey was created and sent via an online survey system (SurveyMonkey®). Survey results were returned anonymously and could not be traced back to members.

Currently, surgical antibiotic prophylaxis for head and neck cancer patients varies from institution to institution, as well as between surgeons of the same institution. To date, no one antibiotic regimen has been found to be superior for treating head and neck cancer patients with penicillin allergies.

Objectives: The aims of the study are to 1) summarize the characteristics and demographics of the women who make up Women in Neurotology, and 2) share the data findings with the medical community through presentations and publications.

Background: Obtaining informed consent from a patient prior to surgery is critically important for both the patient and the medical team performing the surgery. A properly executed consent document represents an understanding and acceptance between the patient and his physician about the procedure to be performed and the risks associated with the procedure. Failure to properly consent a patient prior to surgery could result in harm both to the patient as well as to the physician.

A recent audit conducted by UI Health found that only 21 percent of all surgical consents reviewed within a 30 day period were compliant with consent requirements. As a result of the audit, the department of otolaryngology is conducting a retrospective review of surgical consents to determine 1) the departments surgical consent compliance rate and 2) the reason for non-compliance for each consent failure, and the rate of non-compliance for specific items in the consent. Information gathered because of this study will be used as a training tool for staff members obtaining surgical consent in our department.