Self -Doubt is Normal
We need it to grow
I will never forget the first time that I used water to flush out the wax built up in the ear of an elderly lady. I was doing a medical school rotation through an Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) office. The water must have been too cold and right in front of me, the lady started flailing her arms around and yelling that the room was spinning. She nearly fell out of the elevated examination chair. I was shocked and dumbfounded.
I had inadvertently stumbled into a test of her vestibulo-ocular reflex. When water that is too cold or too warm is placed into the external ear canal, the auditory nerve activates the part of the brain stem is that controls balance. The test was once used to test for brain stem death in intensive care patients before more modern forms of brain wave testing.
My patient’s acoustic nerve and brainstem were working quite well, thank you, life, for that quick and dramatic lesson. Fortunately, the sensation passed and she did not fall on the ground. My inexperienced blunder caused little harm. (although my nerves were shot!) In the future, I was careful to test the temperature of the irrigation water and to lie the person down before putting water into the ear canal.
