Surfer’s Ear Treatment with Haruka in Japan

Haruka Nakanishi MD, PhD is a long time SMA member. We would love to share a little about the amazing techniques he is using to treat surfer’s ear surgically in Japan.

“I already operated about 200 ears of surfer’s ear cases.

Nowadays some surfer’s come to Japan for the operation of their surfer’s ear. Especially from NZ and AUS.

Because, the surgical technique in NZ and AUS is still retro-auricular incision, and it needs quite a long time for healing.

Usually, the surfer’s I operate go surfing again 2~3 weeks after surgery.”

Surfer’s Ear Surgical Treatment:

The total cost of the treatment is about US$5000 for both ears. This includes hospitalization (one night stay),preoperative examinations (CT scan, hearing test,endoscopy of the ear canal), all meals and medications.

This is much cheaper than that of CA, USA. Flight fee from your country is not included.

Some pre-operative exams should be done in surfer’s country before coming to Japan.
(Blood test, chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, spirometry)

A little about Haruka:

Medical education: University of Miyazaki – 2002

Department: Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Miyazai Universty Hospital

Present Post: Assistant Professor

Board certified Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery of The Oto-Rhino-Laryngological Society Japan. Inc

A Member of Surfer’s Medical Association

Awards:

Otology Society Japan Incentive Award 2009 for the article:

Haruka Nakanishi, Tetsuya Tono, Hirokazu Kawano, Katsuhiro Toyama, Keiji Matsuda. Clinical Observation on so-called Secondary cholesteatoma. Otology Japan18(5):659-664, 2008

Poster Award 1st Place at the Triological Society Annual Meeting, CA, USA. 2012

With SMA’s Dr. Douglas Hetzler July.2013
Doug is well known as the “Michelangelo of the ear canal” because he introduced the chisel technque for Surfer’s Ear surgery in this article:

Douglas G. Hetzler : Osteotome Technique for Removal of Symptomatic Ear Canal Exostoses: Laryngoscope 117:January 2007 Supplement

Doug has a lot of experience especially in surfer’s ear surgery. Haruka visited his clinic and received instruction about the chisel technique for surfer’s ear surgery.

Haruka says Doug is one of the best mentors. We have kept in touch and discuss development in the procedure of surfer’s ear sugery.

Dr. Douglas Hetzler explains about Surfer’s Ear in this website

http://www.pamf.org/dr-douglas-hetzler.html