Almardeeni provides ENT services at FCHC

Almardeeni said she decided to pursue ENT because she likes to treat a wide age range of patients from pediatric to the elderly and there’s both medical and surgical approaches to the practice.

“It involves both medical and surgical approaches — not only surgical or only medical. It’s a combination, and there’s a variety of cases in the same day you see everything from ear, nose, throat,” she said. “I liked that the surgery is very detail oriented, and my personality is very detailed oriented. You work in a very tiny space and you be need to be very precise.”

When she came to the United States, Almardeeni underwent three years of training in a specialty of minimally invasive sinus surgery at St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston prior to coming to Fulton County Health Center in March.

“I will be involved more with chronic sinusitis, nasal septum deviation by the motor rhinitis,” she explained, adding she will also provide general ENT services such as hearing loss assessments, obstructive sleep apnea in children and recurrent ear infections.

Almardeeni added they also offer a variety of treatment options for nosebleeds (epistaxis), which can range from education on how to manage the condition to cauterizing the nasal mucosa for reoccurring nosebleeds.

“It’s a very simple procedure ... we can even do it for kids,” she said. “If the patient comes with active bleeding, we have different types of packs, some absorbable that don’t need to be removed or some of them might need non-absorbable that they would come to the clinic in a few days to remove.”

Almardeeni added managing nosebleeds are a common issue and one area where she can provide education.

“Most of them share the same thing — they panic when they have nosebleeds,” she said. “It’s something that you can manage, and I spend time with the patient and explain to them what to do.

“Most of the patients will lean backward, which is wrong, you need to lean forward when you have a nosebleed,” she continued. “The location of where to press, you need to press on that soft part of your nose, not the pointy part. These kinds of tips and tricks that you give to the patient so that the next time ... he or she will know how to deal with it. This is one of the things that I spend time on because I felt there is a lack of understanding how to deal with epistaxis.”

As part of the practice, Almardeeni explained there are a variety of scopes that help with assessments, such as a fiber optic scope for assessment of the vocal cords, a rigid nasal scope for the examination of nasal symptoms and a microscope specific for the ear to help with the cleaning of earwax and discharge or removal of foreign bodies in the ear.

Almardeeni added one of the more challenging aspects of the practice is the unfamiliar equipment that can be intimidating to patients, especially children.

“The more the parents are preparing their kids before coming to the clinic, the more the child will be cooperative,” she said. “I try to introduce everything for the kid, I deal with them like young adults, I talk to them, I explain and let them touch each instrument that I’m going to use and explain it to them to make it easier for them.”