Dr. Jafri Kuthubutheen

• Dr. Kuthubutheen graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery with Honours in 2002. He then undertook specialist ENT training in Perth, Western Australia and obtained his Fellowship in Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery in 2010.

• From 2011 he worked as a Consultant ENT surgeon at two of Western Australia’s teaching hospitals – Royal Perth Hospital and Fremantle Hospital for one and a half years. During this time he was also a visiting ENT surgeon to rural and remote Western Australia, with an interest in Indigenous Ear Health.

• In 2012 he left for Canada to pursue further specialist training as a Fellow in Otology and Skull Base Surgery at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. Under the guidance of Dr. Joseph Chen, Dr. Julian Nedzelski and Dr. Vincent Lin, he worked in one of the busiest tertiary adult ear surgery centres in Canada for 2 and 1/2 years. Sunnybrook runs the largest Cochlear Implant program and Acoustic Neuroma service in the country. During his time there, he became the inaugural J Pearson Fellow in Otology and Skull Base Surgery and helped to establish several new research projects.

• Prior to leaving for Canada, he was awarded the Warren Jones Postgraduate Research Scholarship from the Fremantle Hospital Medical Research Foundation and the University of Western Australia. In 2017 he obtained his Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in the field of Cochlear Implantation from the University of Western Australia.

• He is actively involved in teaching medical students, residents, registrars and fellows. He has presented at many local and international conferences and has been an invited speaker and instructor at overseas skull base surgery courses. His research interests are in the field of hearing loss, cochlear implantation, chronic ear disease, and skull base surgery.

• He is the current the ENT Clinical Lead in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia.

• Jafri now works as a full time  sub-specialist  Otology and Skull Base Surgeon at Fiona Stanley Hospital, Perth Children's  Hospital and Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital as well as in private at Western ENT.

We see both adults and children with hearing loss for cochlear implants and bone conduction implants. We practice a hearing and structure preservation approach. We work with all major implant manufacturers and offer the latest implants available in the Australia. We also specialise in difficult implant cases and revision surgery. We participate in statewide and local multidisciplinary (MDT) implant meetings to offer the best advice on implant choice with evidenced based practice

We offer minimally invasive repairs of the tympanic membrane perforations (via an endaural approach) using a patient’s natural tissue grafts as well as synthetic graft options. This is with the aim to improve hearing, to waterproof the ear and to reduce recurrent infections. A full assessment will be required before deciding on the type of surgery required and the outcomes expected. We also specialise in revision surgery and difficult cases.

We offer a comprehensive assessment for patients with conductive or mixed hearing loss due to ossicular chain abnormalities. These are conditions where the hearing bones are either missing, eroded or fixed due to ear disease or previous surgery. We utilise modern ossicular chain prostheses (which are artificial hearing bones) that are customised to the ear to improve hearing. Our hearing outcomes with OCR surgery have recently been included in a new internationally developed predictive tool (in conjunction with the University of Chicago) to assess surgical outcomes. Patients will need a detailed assessment to determine their individual suitability for this surgery.