The 39th annual Ogura Lectureship and 34th annual Resident Research Day were held June 18, 2021. The event took a hybrid format for the first time, with resident researchers presenting their findings from the Ogura Learning Center in McMillan Hospital. Guest speaker and otolaryngology alumnus Ellis Arjmand, MD, PhD, presented the Ogura lecture remotely from New Orleans. More than 100 online attendees viewed the four-hour event.
The 2021 Ogura lecturer, Arjmand, serves as surgeon-in-chief of Children’s Hospital New Orleans. He completed his residency in otolaryngology at Washington University and a fellowship in pediatric otolaryngology at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. He is now a recognized authority on medical management.
His presentation, “Thinking about Thinking: Cognitive Bias and Medical Error,” helped explain why very caring and experienced healthcare providers still make mistakes and offered suggestions for altering the thought processes that go into crucial decision making. Fifteen ENT residents and four medical students presented highlights of their research efforts in a wide variety of disciplines covering basic, clinical and outcomes research. Winners of the annual Paparella Research Awards for basic and clinical science were:
| Basic Science |
| 1st Place Tom Barrett, MD – “Single Cell Multi-omic Analysis of Vestibular Schwannoma” (Mentors: Sid Puram, MD, PhD, and Craig Buchman, MD) |
| 2nd Place Ben Wahle, MD – “Comparative Multiomic Analysis Reveals Low T Cell Infiltration as the Primary Feature of Tobacco Use in HPV(+) Oropharyngeal Cancer” (Mentor: Jose Zevallos, MD, MPH) |
| Clinical Science |
| 1st Place Amit Walia, MD – “Electrocochleography as a Tool to Predict Postoperative Speech-Perception Performance after Cochlear Implantation” (Mentor: Craig Buchman, MD) |
| 2nd Place Zachary Douglas, MD – “CI Electrode Position Predicts Hearing Preservation” (Mentor: Nedim Durakovic, MD) |
“The scope and quality of basic, translational and clinical research on display at our annual Ogura Lectureship and Resident Research Day was both inspiring and impressive,” said Lindburg Professor and Chair Craig Buchman, MD. “We witnessed groundbreaking results that will positively impact our patients’ lives in years to come. Our Ogura lecturer and alumnus, Ellis Arjmand, also reminded us to slow down and ‘think about thinking’ in an effort to recognize cognitive biases and their impact on clinical care.”
Congratulations to all our presenters and a special thank you to our 2021 guest lecturer Dr. Ellis Arjmand.