ENT referral in West Los Angeles Area

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First of all, DAN does an amazing job doing what they do (they may have saved my life once), but they can only have people in the network if there are appropriate docs willing to volunteer for that.

Second, I think that expectations are unrealistic about diving and medicine in general. The only sorts of docs that you are going to find who are professionally qualified to treat diving injuries would be specialists in hyperbaric medicine, where there is an actual board exam, etc... These tend to be critical care docs, anesthesiologists or pulmonologists first, so while they are the most knowledgable about DCS, they may not have a lot of surgical experience in the ears and sinuses, for example.

There isn't some sort of official subspecialty training in otolaryngology for diving related problems. So what you usually get are people like me, who are otolaryngologists and avid divers, who are happy to help but who might not show up on that network.

For serious ear problems (i.e. eardrum perforations and perilymph fistulas), what you need is an otologist (ENT doc specializing in ear disease). Yes, you might find an otologist who is a diver, but if you have a serious ear injury, I would find an excellent otologist first and worry about the dive specific stuff later.

The problem that always comes up is that someone wants to dive after an ear injury, for example, and they are frustrated that their non-diving ENT doc just tells them not to dive. The thing is that there just isn't much real data about diving after ear surgery, etc... and it's always going to end up as the diver assuming an unknown risk, and doing his or her best to mitigate that risk by not diving if they can't equalize, etc.. Same goes for sinus problems - find a good rhinologist first to get the medical and surgical issues sorted out.

Anyway, good luck! Dr. Grossan has a good reputation, and he was one of the first people to be active in our specialty on the Internet, way back in the dark ages. Also, the House group is very well known for otology...
 
First of all, DAN does an amazing job doing what they do (they may have saved my life once), but they can only have people in the network if there are appropriate docs willing to volunteer for that.
Agreed, DAN is good at what they do. But for DAN to advertise that they have a network of physicians for referrals, when (for whatever reason) they do not, is misleading and wrong.
 
Kudos to DAN but it is true that their list can be minimal and out of date. My request/suggestion is for the list to be available on line.
 

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