Heard of audiometry?
R. SUJATHA
Audiometricians are urgently required by ENT specialists but they are in short supply. Now that the government has launched its National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness, the need is more acutely felt, the specialists say.
An audiometrician is as important to the field of ENT as an optometrist is to ophthalmology. But, most audiometricians are trained in-house and later absorbed by the hospital.
The All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore, offers extension classes in 12 centres. The virtual mode course admits students who have passed Class XII through the science stream. The course is offered in Puducherry’s JIPMER, Mumbai, Cuttack, Jabalpur, Ranchi, Imphal, Lucknow, New Delhi, Ajmer and Shimla. The students get practical training in hospital during the morning hours. The afternoon sessions are devoted to theory classes that are beamed across all the centres.
The Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped in Mumbai is another institution that offers classes in Mumbai and Hyderabad. In many private universities and institutions, where a degree course in audiology is offered, audiometry is taught as part of the course.
S. Gopalakrishnan, head of ENT Department, JIPMER, said now that the national deafness programme had taken off, the government might consider offering the courses in more centres.
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