ENTtoday Welcomes Resident Editorial Board Members

ENTtoday strives to be inclusive and representative of all voices across the otolaryngology field. As part of this effort, we’re excited to welcome two new editorial board members, Alexandra Berges, MD, and Arifeen Rahman, MD, to bring the resident voice to the conversation.

Alexandra Berges, MD, is a PGY-3 resident in the department of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She’s eager to contribute to ENTtoday by refining her medical writing and editorial skills, identifying impactful topics, and bringing a resident voice to the conversation of otolaryngology. Dr. Berges has a multidisciplinary research background; her work has included biomedical engineering applications, including virtual reality tools in surgical education and novel medical device development, as well as outcomes research. She also has experience in medical content creation and public engagement, particularly on social media. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she founded CovidUp2Date, a social media initiative that provided evidence-based medical information through visually compelling infographics, reaching more than 20,000 followers, and later created “The Health Beat” podcast to translate headline medical news to the public.

“These experiences strengthened my ability to communicate complex scientific topics in an engaging and accessible way, a skill that I believe is crucial for ENTtoday’s audience,” Dr. Berges said. For the past two years, Dr. Berges has also served on the Facial Plastic Surgery and Aesthetic Medicine Resident Advisory Council, producing social media posts and podcasts that extend the journal’s reach. She said, “This has reinforced my commitment to academic publishing and collaboration within specialty societies and given me skills in analyzing published works and synthesizing content for broad viewership.”

Dr. Berges looks forward to working with ENTtoday’s editorial board and contributing to the Resident Focus column that highlights issues most relevant to trainees. “Through mentorship and collaboration with other board members, I hope to gain insight into the editorial decision-making process and develop my voice as a contributor to the scientific field and share perspectives relevant to trainees while honing my ability to communicate a message effectively in a succinct way,” she said.

Arifeen Rahman, MD, is a PGY-5 in the department of otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif. She is motivated to join the editorial board to integrate her interests in writing, health policy, and advocacy within the field of otolaryngology.

Dr. Rahman aims to enhance her academic career by merging these interests with her future fellowship training in neurorhinology and skull base surgery, which she will pursue in 2026 at the Medical University of South Carolina. Her background in narrative medicine, health journalism, and health disparities research positions her to spark meaningful dialogue among otolaryngologists nationwide.

During her research elective in residency, Dr. Rahman interned at the ABC News headquarters in New York, editing, fact checking, and helping produce medical stories scheduled to appear on “Good Morning America,” “World News Tonight,” and other broadcast and print outlets. She also pitched and authored articles. Dr. Rahman said, “I would apply these skills to my work on the editorial board to focus on timely topics that have high impact and common interest among readers of ENTtoday.” Her writing has been published via a variety of outlets, from opinion pieces on public radio for KQED, San Francisco’s NPR affiliate, to letters to the editor in The New York Times, and creative non-fiction in McSweeney’s.

Dr. Rahman also brings a strong interest in health policy, with a particular focus on challenges such as insurance delays, prior authorizations, federal reimbursement policies, and prescription expenses. 

“My prior work in health policy has spanned working with the Massachusetts State House on legislation through the Harvard Institute of Politics, to publishing on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on trauma care and using patient narratives to champion new perspectives on quality improvement measures,” she said. “Using this lens for relevant topics to otolaryngologists can build engagement in the community.”