Message from the ChairHome > About the Department > Message from the Chair
Greetings to our friends and colleagues from the beautiful campus of The Ohio State University.
A great excitement is building here in the Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. With much growth and change within the department over the past year, there is much to be enthused about. We have just been joined by four top recruits, Charles Elmaraghy, MD (pediatric otolaryngology); Abraham Jacob, MD (neurotology); Doug Massick, MD (director of general otolaryngology); and Enver Ozer, MD (head and neck oncology). They are all talented surgeons, educators and innovators and they bring a wide array of talents to the department. In addition they are great human beings and wonderful colleagues. Dr. David E. Schuller was named the senior executive director of OSU Medical Center Development. The James Center Hospital expansion, which he is overseeing, will double the number of cancer patient beds and will add further research capacity for our designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. He will continue his busy clinical practice as well, but has received some welcome relief with the arrival of Dr. Enver Ozer. We continue to be blessed with superior residents in otolaryngology. Our incoming group of first-year residents averaged in the 99th percentile on their USMLE part I scores and have outstanding research and extracurricular activities. Stephen P. Smith, Jr., M.D who completed the residency this year was the recipient of The Ohio State University Citizenship Award, one of three selected from among his peers of 600 other residents. We dipped to the 98th percentile as a residency group on the in-service training examination, down from the 99th percentile the past two years, so we are beginning the remedial work now! Our research efforts have also been productive this year with two new R01 grants in the department awarded to Dr. Greg Wiet and myself. Greg's work, with collaborator Don Stredney, on the "Multi-Center Testing of the Virtual Temporal Bone Dissector Simulator" is one notable highlight. The potential for education of all otolaryngology residents and for preoperative simulation with this technology is exciting. Deciphering the underlying molecular causes of vestibular schwannomas in our laboratory has moved forward this year as well in collaboration with Dr. Long-Shen Chang and a host of dedicated research colleagues. Dr. Jazz Lang has secured funding through the BRCP to investigate Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas. There is an elevated level of energy about here and it is a great pleasure to be a part of it.  D. Bradley Welling, MD, PhD Chair, Department of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery |
