Otolaryngology Care for Our Kids

Pedi­atric ear, nose, and throat dis­or­ders remain among the pri­ma­ry rea­sons chil­dren vis­it a physi­cian. Ear infec­tions rank as the num­ber one rea­son for an appoint­ment, accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Otolaryngology‒ Head and Neck Surgery Foundation.

As we rec­og­nize Pedi­atric Kids’ ENT Month, we high­light our Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) team. The QMG team includes (pic­tured here from left to right) Ryan Owens, NP‑C; Paul Con­rad, MD; Abra­ham Sheffield, MD; and Katie Ayres, CNP. They care for patients of all ages.

Ayres spe­cial­izes in pedi­atrics and joined the ENT team a lit­tle over a year ago after work­ing in QMG’s Pedi­atrics depart­ment. We spoke to Ayres about the unique­ness of car­ing for our community’s youngest patients.

In 2008, Ayres start­ed her career as a Pedi­atric nurse and, in 2013, decid­ed to fur­ther her edu­ca­tion to become a Pedi­atric Nurse Prac­ti­tion­er. Before com­ing to QMG, she worked at Children’s Mer­cy Hos­pi­tal, where she worked in both in-patient and emer­gency room/​urgent care. She even­tu­al­ly came back home to Quin­cy, where she began her career at QMG.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend her days with kids makes Ayres’s work­days not only mean­ing­ful but fun.

“I just love kids. I have always loved kids. I think it’s fun to be part of their lives and see them grow. I get to kind of play while I’m at work,” she said. ​“I try to make going to the doc­tor not so scary. I let them touch the equip­ment, let them see what it does, and answer their ques­tions. The more you can make it a fun expe­ri­ence for them, the bet­ter they will do in oth­er areas when they go to the doctor.”

Sim­i­lar to the nation­al sta­tis­tics, Ayres said her team sees con­cerns relat­ed to ear infec­tions most often, fol­lowed by sleep con­cerns, throat infec­tions, and ton­sil concerns.

“Ear infec­tions are com­mon in kids, but when kids begin get­ting recur­rent ear infec­tions, it’s more con­cern­ing, espe­cial­ly if they have had three ear infec­tions in six months or four in a year, or if they have per­sis­tent flu­id in the ears,” Ayres shared. ​“We see a lot of kids for ear tubes, of course, for ton­sil con­cerns, too, whether that be for recur­rent throat infec­tions or con­cerns about sleep apnea in kids.”

Some­times those con­cerns can lead to surgery, per­formed by Ayres’s physi­cian col­leagues Dr. Con­rad and Dr. Sheffield at the QMG Surgery Cen­ter. A cou­ple of times a month she goes to the Surgery Cen­ter along with the physi­cians, which has giv­en her more insight into what her young patients can expect.

“I’m a mom of three young kids and I know what it’s like to be up with a sick kid at night and be wor­ried about going in for dif­fer­ent pro­ce­dures,” she said. ​“The nice thing about going to the Surgery Cen­ter with Dr. Sheffield and Dr. Con­rad is that some­times I’m there with the kids while they’re in surgery. That has giv­en me a real­ly good idea of what they can expect there. Some­times just know­ing step by step what to expect can be very com­fort­ing for the par­ent and the child.”

Being there every step of the way and see­ing her patients’ recov­er is what Ayres finds most rewarding.

“I don’t think there’s any­thing that makes me hap­pi­er than when I see a child pri­or to get­ting tubes, when they’re hav­ing issues with their hear­ing, and then after they get their tubes, we repeat their hear­ing test and they have nor­mal hear­ing again. Or, when a par­ent tells me their child stops breath­ing when they sleep and they’re scared, but after their ton­sils are out, they come in and their child is now sleep­ing bet­ter,” she shared. ​“There’s noth­ing more reward­ing than to hear these things that have changed these kids’ and par­ents’ lives.”

Ayres said if you have con­cerns about your child’s ear, nose, or throat health, parents/​guardians should speak to their child’s pri­ma­ry care provider.