Amanda Wilde (Host): This is UAMS Health Talk. And today, we're looking at the UAMS ENT Head and Neck Program with Dr. Gresham Richter. Dr. Richter is an otolaryngologist and chair of the ENT department at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. I'm your host, Amanda Wilde. And Dr. Richter, thank you for being here.

Gresham Richter, MD: Thank you, Amanda.

Host: It's a pleasure to have you. There are qualities that really set apart the ENT program at UAMS as different from other ear, nose, and throat programs in the region. What makes the ENT program at UAMS special?

Gresham Richter, MD: Amanda, thanks for asking that. I want to start off by just saying how proud I am to be the chair of the ENT program. This is a program that's been around for many, many years. And it's a legacy program after two amazing chairs ran the program, Dr. James Suen and then Dr. John Dornhoffer. So, I was lucky enough to adopt this special program that is filled with providers that what I believe are really focused on patient care as their number one priority.

What makes it even more special is the fact that these are also international leaders within their own fields, whether it's in facial plastics, laryngology or voice surgery and swallowing problems, sinus surgery and skull base surgery, hearing issues, middle ear problems, and to head and neck cancer and skin cancers.

I mean, these people are leaders already within their field. They publish, they write book chapters. We have a number of books that have come from our department as the lead senior editors. So, it's great to have people that are still so patient-centered, but are also, you know, academicians that can take care of anything, but then are also wanting to be able to take care of all the simplest ear, nose, and throat problems that you have.

We also have a partner, in the department. It's Arkansas Children's Hospital, where we have at least a number of maybe eight more providers that are pediatric ear, nose, and throat specialists who cover, again, all the gamuts of ear, nose, and throat, and head and neck surgery problems within the state.

Host: It's great knowing there's a team that can approach any problem with such comprehensive knowledge. So for someone dealing with common ENT head and neck issues, hearing loss, sinus problems, or voice concerns, for example, can you describe how their experience at UAMS is going to be different from a typical clinic?

Gresham Richter, MD: Yeah, I think the first thing that people need to realize is that our mission is to make sure we get anybody who wants to come to UAMS for their ear, nose, and throat problems, we get them in as soon as we can. Our mission is to provide the access to care for everybody across the state.

And recently, what we've been trying to do is actually extend our program to get to people closer at home, right? So, we can have providers that are sitting in different parts of the state that actually you can get access to us at a much easier rate. So if they do have a sinus problem or a hearing problem or a voice problem, not only will they get just quick access, but they're also going to get a multidisciplinary kind of approach.

For example, you mentioned voice. If it's a voice issue, you have a speech pathologist and an otolaryngologist sitting in the same room and discussing their care and working with the patient at the same time. If it's a hearing problem, they're seeing an audiologist. And they're also getting to see the surgeon or nurse practitioner at the same time.

If it's a head and neck cancer, we're talking a group of people will see you in a multidisciplinary approach from an oncologist to a head and neck surgeon, also a radiation oncology, all at the same time. The mission really is to provide care so you don't have to keep going back and forth between the institution, but you get this full breadth of multidisciplinary care that focuses on that particular ear, nose, and throat issue.

Host: So, that makes sense. Multidisciplinary care, less going around to other places, but very individually tailored for each patient. You mentioned that UAMS is expanding access to care across the state of Arkansas. How are you doing that for people who might be in rural communities or smaller communities in the state?

Gresham Richter, MD: So, we're working with the regional care centers to get our providers into their centers. Because if you think about it, a lot of ear, nose, and throat issues, people have a tendency to ignore. They may have hearing loss or their voice is raspy or they feel, you know, a throat problem on a regular basis, and they'll see a primary care physician. We want to be in those centers where, if there is a referral that needs to happen, it could happen right away. So, we're working with the family medicine UAMS regional care centers to get our providers within those particular locations.

To just give you a couple examples, you will put a person in Fort Smith, a person in Jonesboro. We're working on getting people down in Texarkana. So, I think the goal is to get as far into the corners of the state so that it doesn't take very long to get to somebody who's an ENT provider and to be able to do it relatively quick,ly because we're sitting within the other clinics where ear, nose, and throat issues usually are first seen, like a family medicine doctor.

Host: You mentioned too that partnerships are key to your program. How does your partnership with Arkansas Children's enhance what you can offer pediatric patients and their families?

Gresham Richter, MD: That relationship is critical, right, to the success of getting access to the whole age group, right? You know, we take care of kids from zero days of birth, you know, right after birth, all the way up to, you know, 80 or 90 years of age. So, the best place to take care of kids really is at a children's hospital, I believe.

And we want to have our providers positioned there because they are sub-specialized where they can handle the simple need of ear tubes, you know, a tonsillectomy, to the most complex things like reconstructing the airway, putting in a cochlear implant to help children with hearing loss. I mean, all those things. But you need really a tertiary care center like Children's Hospital, to make that happen.

If you don't mind me mentioning, Amanda, we also are partnering with cancer clinics across the state as well, and we're positioned within those clinics in order to provide urgent access to patients who are newly diagnosed with head and neck cancer, with skin cancer. So, we want to be available in those relationships as well across the state.

Host: We were talking about the construction of these partnerships and why the center is different. We've talked about access. Let's talk about the treatments that you give. What are some of the most innovative and/or cutting-edge treatments or procedures that your team is providing right now?

Gresham Richter, MD: As you can imagine, because we're on the cutting edge of research, we're also on the cutting edge of the tools that we can actually provide, whether it's a robotic-assisted, surgery to put in a cochlear implant or to remove a cancer, we are doing that. If we need special scopes in order to truly assess what the voice problem is, we are doing that. We can reinnervate nerves. I mean, there's so many things that we do now that are really on the cutting edge of taking care of patients. And it's at all the campuses at which we're positioned.

Host: And you've received national recognition and major awards. How does that level of expertise translate into better care for Arkansans' day to day?

Gresham Richter, MD: I think if people from around the country and around the world are wanting to come to Arkansas to get their care from the head and neck surgery department at UAMS and at Children's, then you have to think that even for the simplest of things, that you would want that same type of level of care from your providers.

And I think that's what makes it special. Those national recognition, the national awards that we receive really says that, you have top quality physicians sitting right here in Arkansas ready to take care of your ear, nose, and throat concerns.

Host: Dr. Richter, thank you so much for sharing this important information about how the ENT Head and Neck Department delivers high-quality specialized ENT care and improves the lives of patients of all ages across Arkansas. What are you looking forward to in the future?

Gresham Richter, MD: So, we are expanding. We're adding more providers so that we can provide better access. So, that's the first step. We're adding new laryngologists, facial plastic surgeons, sinus surgeons, pediatric otolaryngologists, and head and neck cancer surgeons. We are trying to expand the program to improve the lives of our Arkansans. Because as I mentioned, I said it before, people have a tendency to ignore, you know, their hearing loss or other issue, ENT issues or their sinus problems. Let us help take care of it. You know, that's what we want to do, and so we're expanding the program to make that happen

Host: Dr. Richter, thank you so much for your time today.

Gresham Richter, MD: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Host: Dr. Gresham Richter is an otolaryngologist and department chair of UAMS ENT Head and Neck Program at UAMS. For more information, go to medicine.uams.edu/otolaryngology. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it on your social channels and check out the entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. Thanks for listening to UAMS Health Talk.