By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The new Ear, Nose and Throat medical practice that opened last week in Bowling Green was a long time coming.
Dr. Afser Shariff recalled at a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday, that he’d discussed the possibility of partnering with Wood County Hospital with Hospital President Stan Korducki back in 2002. The time then wasn’t right.
Shariff said that may have been for the best since he’s much more experienced. The practice includes Shariff, Gary Coleman, and Nurse Practitioner Kaitlin Hanus.
With the growth in population and increased development, Shariff said, “we’ve been looking for the right way to come down here.”
And just when the partnership was worked out with the hospital building a new office for the practice in suite 38 at Greenwood Centre, 1616 East Wooster St., the pandemic struck.
Shariff said they decided to postpone the planned opening. “We didn’t want to open in April and have nothing to do. “ In the meantime, “we got most of the nuts and bolts sorted out.”
Now the practice is up and running. The office is open Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call 419-728-0627 for an appointment.
The practice, which had been in the Toledo area, already was seeing patients in the Bowling Green area.
Typically, Shariff had to drive up to two hours to reach them.
These services, Korducki said, were not available here before. Anyone who needed them would have to travel. The practice will use the operating facilities at Wood County Hospital. It has all the equipment needed, Korducki said. They just needed the specialist.
“Stan and I have worked for the last year on the mechanics of how to make it work,” Shariff said. “They were kind enough set up this beautiful space to work out of.”
It would be difficult to launch a practice from scratch, he said. The hospital would have to hire a doctor, and a doctor to back up them up. “In this case, we put skin in the game, they put skin in the game. It’s a collaborative approach to create something that’s of service to the community.”
Now patients can get almost all their ear, nose, and throat work in Bowling Green.
The practice addresses a wide range of ills, including complex issues patients would have to travel to university affiliated clinic in Ann Arbor, Columbus, Cincinnati or Cleveland to have treated.
Ear, Nose & Throat specialists deal with a wide range of issues.
“We cover the spectrum from young to old,” Shariff said.
The geriatric population has age related issues with balance, coordination, and hearing. The pediatric patients are dealing with recurrent ear aches and also hearing issues.
Middle aged patients have “life-style related” problems such as sleep apnea and snoring. “Those affect energy levels and their productivity,” the doctor said.
And symptoms can point to deeper underlying problems, including cancers.
The physicians see a lot of patients complaining of dizziness and vertigo. Recurring ear and sinus infections are very common. Allergies, including food allergies, also manifest themselves as ear, nose and throat problems.
Others have hoarseness or trouble swallowing. “They feel like they have something stuck in their throat.”
They can treat thyroid issues and throat cancers. Goiter is common in this region.
The clinic is set up to handle all of these. It includes examining rooms as well as specialized rooms for treating allergies, one for surgeries that do not require hospitalization, and a sound-proof booth for hearing tests.
These needs didn’t stop during the pandemic.
Shariff said that back in March the practice in its Toledo-area office limited visits to urgent care. “The first two weeks, it was very quiet,” he said, “and after that it was like a mud slide. It was amazing the number of people who were coming through.”
He was doing an emergency operation on a patient’s airway almost daily.
“What happened was for those two weeks people weren’t seeing their primary care doctors, and they had some hoarseness, some pain and discomfort. They developed tumors that were obstructing their airways so we had to do emergency surgeries for that.”
Now the situation has settled enough that they can go ahead and start working out of the Bowling Green office.
“We’re slowly ramping up,” Shariff said. “I can tell you the phone calls are quite significant in the last week. Once people know they don’t have to drive an hour … to get high quality care, you start filling up.”
