WashU Medicine Director of Dizziness and Balance Center shares insight into his career and his favorite activities.
What is your current title, and how long have you been with Oto and WashU?
I am a neurotologist so I specialize in all disorders related to the ear. I finished my residency at WashU from 2012-2017 and then did a neurotology fellowship from 2017-2019. I have been on faculty since that time. With training and my time as a faculty, I have been at WashU Medicine for 13 years now.
What do you like most about your work here?
My favorite part about being an ENT physician is helping to solve challenging otologic problems for our patients. These problems can affect patient’s quality of life significantly including hearing loss, vertigo, and facial paralysis among other problems. It is really satisfying to improve patient quality of life through either surgery or medical therapy and to also work on advancing our field to improve these treatments.
How would you describe life in your household?
Life in our household is fun with our 5- and 4-year-old kids. We enjoy traveling, cooking, and trying new things. My kids are adventure seekers so every weekend we try to do something new. The weekends now are spent ice skating, playing superheroes and learning how to ride bicycles. We enjoy traveling and going back to my home country Bosnia every year and traveling somewhere new as well.
Do you have a favorite activity or pastime?
I enjoy gardening. It is very satisfying to nurture something from a seedling to a full bloom. Gardening is very simple but also very complicated at the same time just like medicine or even life. You have to deal with droughts or periods of too much rainfall, variability in sunlight, changes in soil fertility, other competitive plants and even invasive weeds. Nurturing a beautiful, sustainable garden is a great challenge and learning opportunity.
Is there a special something at the top of your bucket list, and why?
The top of my bucket list includes learning a new language. I always enjoy connecting with people and learning about new cultures. I knew Bosnia, Serbian, and Croatian languages from my childhood and learned English and Spanish later but would love to learn more languages and see all the different parts of our world.