by Danny Bonvissuto

Aaron Moberly, MD, has joined the Department of Otolaryngology, specializing in cochlear implantation, including speech recognition and quality of life outcomes after implantation.

Moberly, Guy M. Maness Professor of Otolaryngology, comes to Vanderbilt after nine years on faculty at The Ohio State University (OSU) following a two-year neurotology fellowship at OSU. He did his otolaryngology residency training at Indiana University.

“Dr. Moberly is an internationally recognized leader, surgeon and scientist in the field of neurotologic surgery,” said David Haynes, MD, MMHC, professor of Otolaryngology and Hearing and Speech Sciences, and chief of the Neurotology Division. “His research in cochlear implant outcomes has resulted in game-changing improvements for thousands of hearing-impaired individuals.”

Moberly said he is excited to extend the impact of his research on cochlear implantation in a premier, high-volume program that offers more than 300 cochlear implants a year — the largest in the United States.

“I am privileged to be able to join this great department to continue to develop and contribute to a multidisciplinary cochlear implant research program that focuses on a broad array of factors that relate to cochlear implant patient outcomes,” said Moberly, who co-directs the Cochlear Implant Cognition and Communication Laboratory with Terrin Tamati, PhD, who also transferred to VUMC from OSU and plays a foundational role in their laboratory.

Based on his research on adults with cochlear implants, Moberly is developing an adult cochlear implant research/clinical program that aims to tailor rehabilitative treatment protocols to individual patients based on their auditory, linguistic and cognitive profiles.

“Quality of life outcomes provide important complementary outcomes data compared with our in-clinic measures of speech recognition that we usually use to assess outcomes,” Moberly said. “We know from the literature that quality of life and speech recognition are not strongly correlated, so it is important to consider real-world concerns of our patients and not focus entirely on the speech recognition measures we collect in the clinic. Finding rehabilitation targets that more closely impact real-world quality of life is a focus of our center.”

According to René Gifford, PhD, the Fred H. Bess Professor of Audiology and director of the Cochlear Implant Research Laboratory, Moberly has inspired his colleagues with his “beyond the ear” approach to otologic intervention and management.

“Even when he was just out of his fellowship training, it was clear that he going to make tremendous contributions to the fields of otology, neurotology, audiology and hearing science,” Gifford said. “We’re so lucky to have recruited him to Vanderbilt and I look forward to years of innovative scientific discovery.”