- The WHO states that there are 1.5 billion people with some degree of hearing loss worldwide.
- Hearing loss can be due to genetic causes, birth complications, certain infectious diseases, chronic otitis, exposure to loud sounds, use of ototoxic medications, and aging.
- Due to unsafe listening practices, more than 1 billion young adults are at risk of permanent and preventable hearing loss.
Medicine is a career that is full of challenges and barriers. It is not an easy path, but every year thousands of young people graduate from universities with the mission of offering the best possible service to patients. Within the stories of each of the health professionals in our country, there is one that stands out as an example that nothing can stop you from achieving all your dreams. It is the one starring the Dr. Juan Pablo Valadezwho was never intimidated even by his physical limitations.
Description of your case
This young man today is a resident doctor in audiology and otoneurology but what makes her case unique is that she was born with bilateral microtia. For this reason, their hearing capacity is minimal and it is a congenital malformation of the external and middle ear that occurs between one and five cases in every 10,000 newborns. In addition, he also suffers from Bilateral severe hearing loss.
Over the years, these conditions have inspired him to become a doctor and help others like him find the hearing solutions they need.
During their childhood, John Paul Valdez had difficulty recognizing, identifying and discriminating sounds. She had to undergo more than 15 reconstructive surgeries to improve the aesthetics and functionality of her ear although she never fully recovered.
“It was not easy to understand what other people said, I did not understand the topics in my class and it was difficult for me to relate as a normal listening child,” says the resident doctor who is now part of the XXI Century National Medical Center.
Passion for hearing health
After constant visits to hospitals from an early age, Juan Pablo became passionate regarding medicine and his mother was the main architect of this journey. She was the one who fostered that passion with toys that motivated him to perform as a professional in the hearing health.
The search to find hearing aids was complex because, having no ears, the most viable option was the use of a bone headband. She had many questions and concerns regarding what people would say when they saw her new hearing aid, but by the end of the surgery, a whole new world of sounds emerged.
The Dr. Juan Pablo Valadez he describes his first contact with sounds as “a meeting of wonderful emotions, as if he had discovered a new world”. That was the first time she was able to hear every single sound around him without difficulty following 12 years. At that moment, she realized such a wonderful opportunity that she gave him a bone headband.
Listening to the running water when you flush the chain when going to the bathroom, the birds and their song when walking through the park, but, above all, the buzz of a mosquito hovering around your room when trying to sleep. That sound that for many can be the cause of sleeplessness, for him it was the sound that managed to make one of his most memorable days.
Thanks to his taste for medicine, he managed to finish his university career to later work and help in a foundation dedicated to providing hearing aids in low-income areas. There he managed to learn the stories of children like him, who managed to hear for the first time.
“I have a new hearing solution that gives me the opportunity to clearly hear the source of the sound, to interact with more than two people, to function in a noisy space without making much effort to hear the interlocutor. These advantages are essential for my work as an audiologist, not only because I have to be attentive to these auditory stimuli that I give my patients, but also because the patient’s family arrives, and being able to speak with them naturally is key for me as professional”.
During his career as a doctor and now as a resident in audiology and otoneurology, he treated different cases of hearing loss with happy endings, where he might see the satisfaction of each patient upon recovering their hearing or hearing once more for the first time. All of those realities made him feel connected and empathetic, because he knew what each of them was going through and he understood their feelings of joy and amazement when hearing the sounds.