Newly diagnosed with Tinnitus. Is my career in Urgent Care over?

[quietmedic]

So I've been recently diagnosed with tinnitus. Up until now, I've been working in EM and UC, but now....at a loss. Any loud noise is a risk for worsening my tinnitus and causing more damage, and goodness knows, almost every Urgent Care office is full of little kids screaming their heads off. You all know that an uncomfortable baby with fever and herpangina screaming their heads off during tongue depressor exam can reach decibel levels that even the best professional earplugs can barely mitigate...bringing it down from jet engine level to perhaps just about blender or lawnmower level most of the time.

Anyone working in or with Peds ever have to deal with this? What on Earth did you do?

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[SurfingDoctor]

So I've been recently diagnosed with tinnitus. Up until now, I've been working in EM and UC, but now....at a loss. Any loud noise is a risk for worsening my tinnitus and causing more damage, and goodness knows, almost every Urgent Care office is full of little kids screaming their heads off. You all know that an uncomfortable baby with fever and herpangina screaming their heads off during tongue depressor exam can reach decibel levels that even the best professional earplugs can barely mitigate...bringing it down from jet engine level to perhaps just about blender or lawnmower level most of the time.

Anyone working in or with Peds ever have to deal with this? What on Earth did you do?

Sorry to hear that... no pun intended. Do you mean you can't hear at all and are considered deaf? Can you still auscultate basic sounds like wheezing? I mean, not to put down urgent care or anything, but having taken my kids to urgent care for fevers numerous times... the number of times the diagnosis was achieved by auscultation was zero. I'm not saying it can't happen... just a rarity. Either way, if your hearing is a disability that precludes you from a specific job, I don't know what to tell you specifically except be honest with your employer.

As an aside, they do have electronic stethoscopes that can limit ambien noise and amplify the signal...

Littmann Electronic Stethoscopes | 3M

www.littmann.com

 

[quietmedic]

Thanks for the reply, but no, the hearing isn't the issue. My tinnitus comes without hearing loss (happens in 10% of cases). The issue is that babies screaming their heads off will trigger and spike my tinnitus and significantly worsen it, further damaging the hair cells, raising the tinnitus volume and intensity. People with tinnitus often have to leave former jobs where there is loud noise because everything has the potential to worsen it.

 

[SurfingDoctor]

Thanks for the reply, but no, the hearing isn't the issue. My tinnitus comes without hearing loss (happens in 10% of cases). The issue is that babies screaming their heads off will trigger and spike my tinnitus and significantly worsen it, further damaging the hair cells, raising the tinnitus volume and intensity. People with tinnitus often have to leave former jobs where there is loud noise because everything has the potential to worsen it.

I guess I don't completely understand though. Are you young enough to change professions? If not, it is debilitating enough that you can't perform your current one? If the answer to both of those is a "no"... then do you're best at sports physicals or apply to a fellowship where there isn't any (or limited) interaction with screaming infants and toddlers... PICU maybe

Or bite the bullet and apply for radiology or pathology...

As an aside... what about some sort of hearing aid? One that can cancel high frequencies? Does that exist?