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SurgSpace / Specialties / Otolaryngology, Head & Neck

Otolaryngology, Head & Neck

Ear, nose, throat and the neck's compartments: the airway always first, the thyroid and the nerves that decide the voice, and the high-volume operations, tonsils, grommets, septum, whose small complication lists are learned precisely because the operations are so common.

3 operations in depth5 interactive cases

Backdrop: CT of the paranasal sinuses: axial scout and coronal reconstruction through the orbits and ethmoid cells · Ptrump16 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Inside the OR

OR & Periop

Shared operative foundations, the room, the instruments, the anaesthetic.

Shared operative foundations taught once, the room they happen in, the instruments on the tray, and the anaesthetic that makes it possible.

  • The threatened airway

    The specialty's shared emergency method: recognising the failing upper airway and securing it without burning bridges. Every ENT emergency page assumes it, and every covering doctor needs its first half.

    1. 01Recognition. Stridor, voice change, drooling, posture and fatigue, read as a trajectory: the question is not 'is it obstructed?' but 'how long until it is?'.
    2. 02The team and the plans. Senior anaesthesia and ENT at the bedside early, plans A, B and C spoken aloud with roles assigned: airway disasters are usually planning disasters.
    3. 03Keeping bridges. Awake techniques preserve the patient's own breathing while the airway is assessed or secured; induction spends that safety and must only be spent on a credible plan.
    4. 04Front of neck. Tracheostomy and cricothyroidotomy enter below the obstruction: the elective version is calm, the emergency version is the rehearsed last resort, and knowing the anatomy before the crisis is the whole trick.
    5. 05After: the tube's care. Humidification, suction, tapes, and the blocked-tracheostomy drill (remove inner cannula, suction, deflate cuff, and if in doubt remove the tube in a patent-upper-airway patient): ward-level knowledge that saves lives at 3 a.m.
    Used bySurgical tracheostomy

  • The nerves of the neck

    The specialty's operations are mapped around nerves whose injuries are the famous complications: one module, so every operation page can point here instead of re-explaining.

    1. 01Recurrent laryngeal. Motor to almost all laryngeal muscles: unilateral injury is a hoarse, breathy voice; bilateral injury is a stridulous emergency. Its course beside the trachea and behind the thyroid makes it thyroidectomy's central character.
    2. 02External branch of the superior laryngeal. The cricothyroid's nerve, and the voice's pitch: its injury is subtle, famous in singers, and courted while ligating the superior thyroid pedicle.
    3. 03Facial nerve. The parotid's tenant: parotid surgery is planned around its trunk and branches, and its territories (and the forehead-sparing logic of central lesions) are examination classics.
    4. 04Accessory, hypoglossal, vagus. The neck dissection's neighbours: shoulder function, tongue movement and the vagal trunk itself, each preserved by knowing the levels of the neck as a map of named structures.
    Used byTotal thyroidectomySurgical tracheostomy

On the tray

No instruments are tagged to this specialty’s operations yet.

Anaesthesia

The airway, the depth, the haemodynamics and the analgesia: the head of the bed has its own rooms.

Enter anaesthesia

Watch and learn

When an operation is best understood in motion

Watch for

Surgical tracheostomy

  • Position and landmarks
  • Dissection and the thyroid isthmus
  • The tracheal window
  • Tube insertion and confirmation
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Watch for

Total thyroidectomy

  • Access
  • Mobilisation and vessel control
  • The recurrent nerve and the parathyroids
  • Haemostasis and closure
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Watch for

Tonsillectomy

  • Positioning and exposure
  • Finding the capsule plane
  • Delivery and haemostasis
  • Recovery and counselling
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Hub shaped by the Surgical Specialties Lead with the ENT reviewer (open seat). Images and videos carry their source; educational use for supervised learning, not clinical guidance.