Celebrating Excellence in Otolaryngology

At this year’s Combined Sections Meeting, held in Orlando, Fla., January 22-24, the four sections of the Triological Society took the stage to recognize and appreciate otolaryngologists from across the country. The section vice presidents—Natasha Mirza, MD, eastern, Craig A. Buchman, MD, middle, Earl H. Harley, MD, southern, and Dinesh K. Chhetri, MD, western— acknowledged guests of honor and citation winners from their respective sections.

Eastern Section

Guest of Honor Bert W. O’Malley Jr., MD

Dr. O’Malley is the president of the University of Maryland Medical Center, executive vice president for the academic health division of the University of Maryland Medical System, a professor of otorhinolaryngology– head and neck surgery within the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and a practicing head and neck cancer surgeon. He’s an internationally renowned surgeon and innovator in skull base surgery, robotic surgery, and head and neck cancer. Dr. O’Malley co-invented and developed a series of novel robotic surgical procedures called transoral robotic surgery (TORS). He co-founded the first human robotics head and neck surgery program and the first skull base surgery program in the world, and he was co-principal investigator of the first Institutional Review Board-approved clinical trial for robotic surgery in his specialty. He also served as the co-principal investigator of clinical trials that earned U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for TORS procedures in 2009 and 2014.

Citation Awardees

Sujana S. Chandrasekhar, MD

Dr. Chandrasekhar is a clinical professor of otolaryngology at Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra–Northwell University, clinical associate professor of otolaryngology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, director of neurotology at the JJ Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx, and a partner in ENT and Allergy Associates, practicing in New York and New Jersey. She is a consulting editor of the Otolaryngologic Clinics of North America, co-author of Temporal Bone Histology and Radiology Atlas (a textbook written with her father), and CEO of KivviMed, Inc. (a pharma startup company based on her thesis work, intranasal surfactant for Eustachian tube dysfunction and otitis media).

Dr. Chandrasekhar has held many leadership positions, including president of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, president of the American Otological Society, Eastern section vice president and program chair of the Combined Sections Meeting of the Triological Society, and she has received many accolades, including being named a Living Legend in the Hall of Distinction at AAO–HNS and receiving the Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Prize for Inspiring Women in Surgery from the American College of Surgeons and the Luminary Award from AAPI New Jersey.