Leaders in the Field: Miller School Otolaryngologists at the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation Annual Meeting
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- Faculty and clinicians from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine were prominent at the 2025 meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation.
- For the eighth consecutive year, Dr. Adrien Eshraghi presented an expert talk that summarizes the latest hearing research.
- Dr. Maria Suurna, the first female AAO-HNSF coordinator for international affairs, co-led a meeting of the international assembly board on global health care challenges and was a panelist on three different sleep surgery panels.
From panels and courses to organizational leadership, faculty and clinicians from the Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery represented the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine at the 2025 meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HSNF).
AAO-HSNF is one of the world’s largest organizations representing specialists who treat the ears, nose, throat and related structures of the head and neck. The annual meeting was geared equally toward otolaryngologists in academia and private practice.
“The annual AAO conference represents the pinnacle of educational information sharing in our specialty,” said Fred F. Telischi, M.E.E., M.D., chair of otolaryngology, professor of neurological surgery and biomedical engineering and the James R. Chandler Chair in Otolaryngology at the Miller School “UM faculty and trainees are nationally recognized for their leadership and participation in educational courses, research symposia, clinical panels and practice management.”
Collaboration Between Academic Otolaryngology and Private Practice
As a member of the AAO-HSNF Board of Governors representing South Florida, Adrien Eshraghi, M.D., serves as a bridge between the Miller School, the local Miami ENT community and national professional leadership.
“During the AAO board meeting, we discussed the changing landscape of health care in Florida and its impact on otolaryngological practice management and access to care,” said Dr. Eshraghi, a Miller School professor of otolaryngology, neurosurgery, pediatrics and biomedical engineering. “We especially emphasized how we manage the important collaboration between private ENTs and academic otolaryngologists on the key points of reimbursement reform, integration of AI and telemedicine to provide excellent patient care.”
In addition to leadership work, Dr. Eshraghi has for eight consecutive years presented an expert talk at AAO-HSNF that summarizes the latest hearing research. To prepare the talk, he works with Miller School medical students to gather and critically review hundreds of publications from the year before and summarize the most impactful for the presentation.
Highlights from this past year, he said, involved new clinical trials on gene therapy (OTOF gene) for hearing loss initiated in the United States, China and France.
“These trials have significant implications for patients who have deafness,” Dr. Eshraghi said. “It’s really very exciting.”
New Approaches to ENT Care
Larissa Sweeny, M.D., served on the AAO-HNSF planning committee, which reviews abstracts submitted for the conference and determines which will be scientific oral presentations and poster presentations. The committee also selects the panels and courses that will be part of the program.
Many panels this year were geared toward providing background for general ENTs in private practice in newer treatments like immunotherapy.
“It wasn’t available when they did their residency training, but their patients are going to come in and ask questions about it, so I think it’s important that they have some idea of its indications, its side effects and how well it works,” said Dr. Sweeny, associate professor in the Miller School’s Division of Head and Neck Surgery.
Dr. Sweeny presented on the recurring panel, “Cancer Immunotherapy 101 and 102: What the Otolaryngologist Needs to Know,” which examines the role of immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer. The treatment is new and panels from previous years focused on pilot studies and preliminary data. This time, though, panelists discussed concrete data from clinical trials.
“It’s exciting to see how something that was started in the lab and then slowly introduced to patients is now coming to fruition in big, impactful studies,” Dr. Sweeny said.
An International Gathering of ENTs
Maria Suurna, M.D., the first female AAO-HNSF coordinator for international affairs, led the international advisory board assembly at the meeting. Of the nearly 5,000 attendees of the AAO-HSNF meeting, more than 850 were international members.
As international coordinator, Dr. Suurna, professor in the Division of Sleep Medicine at the Miller School, organizes events like joint meetings with the 80 AAO-HSNF member societies around the globe and educational symposia on topics relevant to otolaryngology. She also oversees awards, scholarships and travel grants for international visiting scholars.
“These awards allow people from different parts of the world to come in, establish networks, learn, observe, spend time with one of the academic institutions here, establish connections and, hopefully, go back and become leaders in their field,” said Dr. Suurna.
Dr. Suurna also serves as president of the International Surgical Sleep Society (ISSS), which held a two-day meeting before AAO-HSNF began.
“We organized a very good program that highlighted innovations, new treatments and challenges when it comes to patients with obstructive sleep apnea and snoring,” she said.
During the annual meeting, Dr. Suurna co-led a meeting of the international assembly board on global health care challenges and was a panelist on three different sleep surgery panels.
Other Miller School presenters and leaders at AAO-HNSF included:
• Dr. Telischi, who presented a eulogy for cochlear implant pioneer Dr. Thomas J. Balkany and served on the ANS William House Implant Study Group.
• Corinna Levine, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor in the Miller School’s Division of Rhinology and an AAO-HNSF Cochrane Scholar, served on the Clinical Practice Guidelines Task Force for Surgical Management of CRS. She also chaired the NASBS Value-Based Health Care Committee and the ARS Mentoring Committee. She presented on five different panels during the conference, from a discussion of surgeon-scientist career pathways to allergic fungal rhinitis clinical management.
• Simon Ignacio Angeli, M.D., professor of otolaryngology and neursorgery, who presented in the AAO-HNSF Expert Series on spontaneous cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) otorrhea.
• Medical students Janice Huang, David Elisha and Garrett Forman and otolaryngology resident Tonya Aaron, M.D., Ph.D., who presented scientific posters.
Tags: Department of Otolaryngology, Dr. Adrien Eshraghi, Dr. Corinna G. Levine, Dr. Francisco Civantos, Dr. Fred Telischi, Dr. Maria Suurna, Fred Telischi, head and neck surgery, otolaryngology, sleep apnea, sleep disturbances