Message from the Chair

Our Department’s brand is one of family and being one of the greatest Otolaryngology programs in the country. I am proud to say that we have some of the greatest faculty, surgeons, residents, nurses and staff in the country. Everyone who comes to visit our family walks away with an understanding of how much we truly care about each other and how deep the department’s talents run. While I may be at the helm steering this ship, it is the people within that make our ship one of the best in the country.

Our department has always focused on providing our patients with the highest quality care, providing our residents with unparalleled education, and advancing our field through clinical and translational research. We have built this success on a strong positive culture of support and well-being amongst a close-knit family. As our family has grown over the years, our bonds have as well. With numerous faculty in each subspecialty, we are poised for both great patient care and great education. We have purposefully omitted fellows from our program because we believe residents should have the full benefit of every opportunity. This truly has made our program the “Fellowship of Residencies”. Our residents see and do cases often taken by fellows and come out with an unparalleled training experience. This has been proven to us repeatedly as our residents graduate and move to their next career step. We support our residents in all aspects of life, both professionally and personally. We support all career choices made by our family members and simply want our residents to choose the path that is best for them.

While COVID hit Chicago hard, our department persevered with delivering care and surgeries to all patients. Here in the Loyola Department of Otolaryngology, we take pride in the fact that we do the most complex cases in the state and care for the sickest patients in the region. Difficult times, such as what our country has gone through recently, have only strengthened our commitment to the community and our ability to train those that join our family.

Prior to becoming chair of the department, I served as the program director for many years. This has provided me with a unique insight and ability to better integrate the education, research and patient care aspects of the department. My intimate knowledge and experience has allowed for a much more comprehensive program for the trainees as well as patients seeking care here.

Anyone who has had the opportunity to visit us realizes how close the people are and how important they are to each other. This has built the foundation of who we are as people and partners, as a team in the medical community, as doctors to our patients and as a training program for our future. This foundation runs deeper than any other program in the country and I am proud to be a part of it. The future for our department is bright and full of opportunities. We truly believe that good people make great doctors. We believe that doing the right thing for each other and those we care for leads to greater outcomes and opportunities going forward.

I appreciate you taking the time to come visit our site and hope you understand how important this family is to me and to all of its members. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or would like any more information.

Eric Thorpe, MD, MBA, FACS
Chairman
Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery
Loyola University Medical Center