Then came the fellowship to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane.
“It was basically one year of additional training after residency training,” the Columbus native said. “I really wanted to go to a high-volume medical center and I wanted to see it from a different angle. I thought that would be a great way to do that and see a little bit of the world as well.”
Essig, whose field is otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, spent the year down under dealing with benign and malignant cancers of the head and neck.
Then he came back to OSU. “I’ve been here a year and a half or so and have basically been building a practice. I do a little bit of everything right now, but want to focus on thyroid and parathyroid surgery,” he said.
“I do pediatric ENT, so I work at (Nationwide) Children’s Hospital as well. (And) I work a couple of times a month at Wilson, both in the clinic and the operating room.
“We have been trying to develop a relationship with Ohio State ENT and Wilson so that they can take care of the things that they are equipped and staffed to take care of at Wilson but, if there is anything that needs more acute care, they can send them to Ohio State,” he said.
Essig also lectures to third- and fourth-year medical students at OSU and to the residents in the school’s ENT program. His father is also a professor at OSU in the ob/gyn field.
“I chose (ENT) because I liked the anatomy and I think when you get to know the people in the specialty, it’s not only a dynamic specialty, but it’s comprised of a lot of very interesting people. It seems like a limited specialty, just the head and neck, but it really spans a broad spectrum of disease processes,” he continued.
“From a surgical standpoint, you are in a position where you can help people with a lot of their problems as well as treating medically. You can really make a difference for people and I think that is a fulfilling aspect of the field.”
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