Sep 15, 2026 · 42 min · 11 segments
Where is the line between what a surgeon needs to know and what technology can look up for them? On this episode of BackTable Industry, host Anish Parikh interviews Dr. Satyan Sreenath, rhinologist…
You know, when we think about within the field of ENT, so like I was mentioning all the different subspecialty divisions that are represented, you are essentially training within every facet of it.
Everything from, you know, ear tubes and tonsils and kids to big, you know, facial squamous cell carcinoma, head and neck, microvascular reconstruction.
So that's basically taking like tissue from other parts of the body for reconstructive purposes.
And you're learning kind of the techniques in neck dissection for cancer, for lymph node resection.
And then into the field of rhinology, where a lot of my focus is in now, which is in sinus surgery, nasal surgery, nasal airway surgery, like septoplasty and turbinate reduction to help with nasal airway breathing, all the way to skull base surgery.
So we're working in conjunction with other colleagues and other subspecialties.
So when you are within that training atmosphere, you're learning a little bit about everything.
And so you're learning a lot how do you do pre-op patients, how do you select the right surgical patients in addition to the actual surgeries themselves, surgical steps, surgical maneuvers, surgical techniques to avoid complications.
And then in the back end of things, you know, seeing those patients post-operatively and trying to understand how do you take care of patients in the long term.
And then like, how do you learn each one of them? Is it kind of like, all right, you know, in residency, like, all right, here's, you know, number one, number two, number three, or it's like, hey, we're doing this procedure.
No, that's a good question, right? So when we think about how do we stage this, and especially in the role that I'm in now where I'm kind of on the other side of things and I'm taking residents through procedures and teaching techniques and surgical operative maneuvers, it's graduated for sure.
And so I think the tried and true is that a lot of your bread and butter procedures end up being the ear tubes and tonsillectomies, endoectomies in kids.
Not to say that those aren't complex in their own right, but I think that was the training paradigm within a lot of ENT residencies is you've learned those procedures.
They're kind of the more fundamental in addition to thyroid surgery, parotid surgery.
From a learning atmosphere, you're learning kind of bits and parts of each procedure as you go.
So starting from intern year where residents now have six months of ENT kind of across the board into chief year and your fifth year.
You know, when we think about within the field of ENT, so like I was mentioning all the different subspecialty divisions that are represented, you are essentially training within every facet of it.
Everything from, you know, ear tubes and tonsils and kids to big, you know, facial squamous cell carcinoma, head and neck, microvascular reconstruction.
So that's basically taking like tissue from other parts of the body for reconstructive purposes.
And you're learning kind of the techniques in neck dissection for cancer, for lymph node resection.
And then into the field of rhinology, where a lot of my focus is in now, which is in sinus surgery, nasal surgery, nasal airway surgery, like septoplasty and turbinate reduction to help with nasal airway breathing, all the way to skull base surgery.
So we're working in conjunction with other colleagues and other subspecialties.
So when you are within that training atmosphere, you're learning a little bit about everything.
And so you're learning a lot how do you do pre-op patients, how do you select the right surgical patients in addition to the actual surgeries themselves, surgical steps, surgical maneuvers, surgical techniques to avoid complications.
And then in the back end of things, you know, seeing those patients post-operatively and trying to understand how do you take care of patients in the long term.
And then like, how do you learn each one of them? Is it kind of like, all right, you know, in residency, like, all right, here's, you know, number one, number two, number three, or it's like, hey, we're doing this procedure.
No, that's a good question, right? So when we think about how do we stage this, and especially in the role that I'm in now where I'm kind of on the other side of things and I'm taking residents through procedures and teaching techniques and surgical operative maneuvers, it's graduated for sure.
And so I think the tried and true is that a lot of your bread and butter procedures end up being the ear tubes and tonsillectomies, endoectomies in kids.
Not to say that those aren't complex in their own right, but I think that was the training paradigm within a lot of ENT residencies is you've learned those procedures.
They're kind of the more fundamental in addition to thyroid surgery, parotid surgery.
From a learning atmosphere, you're learning kind of bits and parts of each procedure as you go.
So starting from intern year where residents now have six months of ENT kind of across the board into chief year and your fifth year.
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