Hello. I’m Dr. Mari. I look after little ears, and the big feelings that come with them.
For nearly fifteen years I’ve spent my days in operating rooms and clinic chairs: complex ear surgery, cochlear implants, and a hearing clinic where families learn what their child can and can’t hear. It’s careful, technical work. But what it’s really about is the four-year-old squeezing a parent’s hand, and the parent who hasn’t slept because they’re scared.
Then I had three boys of my own, and children stopped being a mystery to me. I began to understand why they cry (scared, tired, and hungry are three different things), what they can manage at each age, and what the waiting room feels like from the parent’s chair. This site is where I share what that has taught me: plain-language guides for parents, and the small, human techniques I pass on to fellow ENTs.
I’m really glad you’re here.
A surgeon who genuinely loves working with children.
I joined ENT in 2011 and became an ear surgeon in 2013. Ear surgery is the delicate, high-stakes microsurgery of hearing, and along the way hearing itself became my work: walking families from a diagnosis of hearing loss through hearing aids and, when they’re the right answer, cochlear implants. Today I lead our hearing clinic, and I get to watch the children I operate on grow up. They hear their parents. They find their words. They start school.
The pediatric part of my career grew alongside my family. After my first son was born, I came back from maternity leave to help a colleague who was running our pediatric ENT clinic alone, and discovered that raising children had made me better at treating them. I knew what a two-year-old can understand and what a five-year-old can’t sit through. I could tell a scared cry from a tired one. That knowledge turned out to matter as much as anything I learned in training.
Nearly fifteen years in ENT. An ear surgeon since 2013. Three small boys who made me a pediatric one.
From the notebook
If something here helped, or you just want to say hi, I’d genuinely love to hear from you.
I share what I’m learning on LinkedIn, writing for parents and fellow ENTs alike, and I send an occasional note when I publish something new. Otherwise, my inbox is open.