A brief 10-minute surgery performed at the Montreal Children’s Hospital this week gave a teenage girl the ability to hear from her right ear for the first time in her life.
Karina Theoret, 15, was born unable to hear from her right ear. On Wednesday, she became the first person in North America to successfully undergo a new technique called Minimally Invasive Ponto Surgery (MIPS), which involved implanting a hearing aid directly into her skull.
In the past, similar surgeries would take several hours. However, this surgery only took 10 minutes.
And despite being the first North American patient to have the operation, Theoret said she wasn’t nervous.
“I was mostly excited,” she told CTV Montreal.
The teenager was awake for the brief surgery, which used a small drill rather than a scalpel to anchor a hearing device into her head.
“He was like, ‘You good down there?’ I was like ‘Yup, all good.’ He’s like, ‘OK, let’s bring the drill!’” Theoret said with a laugh.
Technically speaking, Theoret won’t hear directly through her right ear. Instead, sounds from the right side of her head will be transferred to her left ear through the hearing aid.
Her doctor, Dr. Sam Daniel from the Montreal Children’s Hospital, called the operation “a breakthrough.”
“We used to do them all under general anesthesia. They had to make an incision in the skin to expose the bone,” Daniel said.
He added that the short operation will help doctors free up their time to see more patients.
“In the Quebec healthcare system where our time is at a premium, this will allow us to do more patients,” he said.
When it comes to Theoret’s day-to-day life, her mother says she’ll still have to take special care.
“We all tell our children to look both ways when they cross the street, but she really has to look both ways,” said her mother, Stacey Hoirch.
As for Theoret, she says the life-changing surgery has made her consider becoming a surgeon herself.
With files from CTV Montreal
