Professor Rea is an otologist and neuro-otologist based at University Hospitals of Leicester, UK. He has a busy middle ear surgical practice, particularly for cholesteatoma, and has developed The Leicester Balance Clinic into one of the busiest in the UK handling 7,000 balance appointments per year.
He is currently President of The British Society of Otology (2020-2022) and has been elected as President of the Royal Society of Medicine, Section of Otology, with his term 2013-2014. Previously he Chaired the British Society of Neuro-otology for 6 years.
Professor Rea is Honorary Professor of Balance Medicine at De Montfort University, and Honorary Professor to the Departments of Neuroscience and Informatics at The University of Leicester.
He is on the faculty of a number of national and international meetings and has organised the popular annual 3-day Leicester Balance Course since 2004. Teaching has played an important part in his career.
He has a busy research programme and is clinical director at Leicester’s balance research laboratory which has a share of a $2,000,000 NIH grant. Current research projects include exploring the central control mechanisms of balance in particular with respect to vestibular migraine and PPPD. He is a core member of the UK’s Meniere’s Disease Registry. Other active research that he will include in his talk at EAONO includes identifying COVID in the middle ear and nasal mucosa of infected patients, virtual consultations for neuro-otology, changing patterns of ENT infections during COVID, and the management of acute mastoiditis in children.