Office-Based Ear Tubes in Children

[Dr. Shelagh Cofer]
Definitely, yes. Practicing with this tool before you actually jump in there and use it is part of the training and part of being successful. You practice with it, you know how to hold it, you know how it works, you balance your hand on the patient's head and the speculum so that, as always, this is what they teach you, if your patient is moving their head and your hand is anchored to their head, your hand will move with them. You're less likely to make a mistake and injure something. We try to do that.

With the Hummingbird, there's two ways that you gauge your depth to make it correct. One is there's a small black line about a millimeter from the tip of the end of the device, and you make the incision, you insert to that depth, and then you slide the slider, and then you come back out. Even though it's a single pass, in my mind, it's got three steps. Insert, slide, come out. That's how I'm thinking about it as I do it. It's not a spring device, it's not mechanical, it doesn't fire into the eardrum. It's very much controlled by the user, the surgeon. I think if you try to rush it, that particular step is you're going to end up with a short shot or something. I sort of think about it as three parts to the one single pass.