Welcome to the Texas ENT audio blog. I'm Shelby Stockton, and today I got to sit down to welcome Texas ENT's newest member ENT specialist, Dr. Michael Briscoe. He told me about his passion for ENT work and why he chose this field. He discusses his areas of expertise and gives some good advice on how we can stay healthy and what to look for if you think you may need to seek professional help.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Texas ENT audio blog. I'm Shelby Stockton, and today I got to sit down to welcome Texas ENT's newest member ENT specialist, Dr. Michael Briscoe. He told me about his passion for E NT work and why he chose this field. He discusses his areas of expertise and gives some good advice on how we can stay healthy and what to look for if you think you may need to seek professional help.
Shelby Stockton (00:24):
Dr. Briscoe, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to spend some time with me.
Dr. Michael Briscoe (00:28):
Well, it's great to be with you Shelby.
Shelby Stockton (00:31):
So I'm sure I'm not the first to welcome you to Texas ENT, but perhaps I'm the first to do it publicly. So welcome!
Dr. Michael Briscoe (00:38):
Thank you. Thank you.
Shelby Stockton (00:39):
So I have a few questions for you to get you, you know, familiarized with, you know, our patients. Uh, why did you decide on ear nose and throat as a doctor?
Dr. Michael Briscoe (00:50):
So I'd known that I wanted to be a doctor for a long time. Um, initially I wanted to be a pediatrician, then I was like, well, I want to be a surgeon. And during medical school, when I did the rotations, I really did enjoy just a lot of them. So I liked a variety of patients, and disease processes. And my now wife, she wasn't my wife at the time. She kind of directed me towards otolaryngology. And I did a rotation during, a break and I just felt like it was a great specialty. I love the fact that I get to see everybody, I get to see newborns. I get to see teenagers, you know, adults, also the older population and I get to see both men and women. So I'm not stuck in, you know, just a certain demographic. And you know, also the ability to impact people's lives, both with just like medicine, but also with surgery. That really appealed to me.
Shelby Stockton (02:01):
That's actually a great segue for my next question. What are your areas of expertise?
Dr. Michael Briscoe (02:06):
So I'm a general otolaryngologist, so I take on a bulk or a vast majority of the ENT specialty. I, once again, I love children, so that includes, tonsillectomies and, and two placement. Um, but I also love to see adults. So I tackle, ear problems. It could be ranging from hearing loss to dizziness, to tinnitus, but also sinus surgery and allergy. I do a little bit of head and neck surgery as well, including like, um, ineligible surgery, thyroid surgery. So just, you know, the depth and breadth of the specialty.
Shelby Stockton (02:53):
What tips would you give to incoming patients that like, for example, like what should they, what's something they can watch out for that may be an indicator that they should come in and see you?
Dr. Michael Briscoe (03:05):
Well, I think there's a lot of things that they should look out for, but, in the area that I live in, the portion of Texas that I live in, there's a lot of like allergy and sinus problems. And I think if this is something that's occurring throughout the year and repetitively, it's probably good to initially seek help from your primary care physician. But if you're kind of stuck and you're not really getting where you want to be, or the help that you need, certainly seeing ENT specialist is important. Another thing that I typically see, or I see a lot of is hearing loss or ringing in the ear, tinnitus, so if it's something that's not going away, it's being persistent, or your family members are kind of bugging you that you're hearing may not be as well as it used to be, or you're asking them to repeat themselves. I would certainly recommend, coming in to see me or one of my colleagues to have that addressed.
Shelby Stockton (04:07):
So what could you tell people how they can stay, keep their hearing healthy? Anything you deal with keeping themselves healthy?
Dr. Michael Briscoe (04:15):
Okay. I would say, one thing that a lot of people do is they try to over clean their ears. Um, a lot of people like to use Q-tips or cotton swabs and they use them daily. I would advise against that. There's several reasons for that, there's times where you can actually push the wax in, or you can actually do permanent damage to the eardrum. So if you are having, feeling like you're having hearing loss or muffled hearing, I would say it's best to come in and be evaluated and make sure that there's nothing more serious going on.
Shelby Stockton (04:49):
Would you recommend those over the counter ear? Um, ear cleaning solutions?
Dr. Michael Briscoe (04:55):
So I would not. And the reason is, a lot of those solutions end up becoming trapped in the ear, with the wax and it can lead to a condition called swimmer's ear or an outer ear infection. So that's why I would advise against those. Now there are, there are always exceptions to that, you know, if you have just a little bit of wax, it's probably okay. But once again, it's probably still best to seek someone like myself to really take a good look at it and make sure that, you know, there's not anything more serious going on.
Shelby Stockton (05:31):
That was a selfish question because, I've been using those. Thank you for that. So, to wrap up, what are you excited about starting this new gig at Texas ENT?
Dr. Michael Briscoe (05:42):
So I'm excited about, you know, new patients and just honestly the whole process and being with a group or an organization that's been in the community for many, many years. They have a very good reputation. They really know how to handle, ENT patients and to be able to see more patients, more efficiently, because I feel like the more lives I get to touch, the more of an impact I get to make in the community, but also, you know, in their lives so that they can have a better quality of life, whether it's a hearing problem or a snoring issue or sinus issue or whatever it is. So I'm really excited and looking forward to joining Texas ENT.
Shelby Stockton (06:35):
Well, we're very excited to have you, and thanks for taking time out of your evening. I know you have dinner planned and I really appreciate it.
Dr. Michael Briscoe (06:43):
All right. Thank you, Shelby.
