The opening of the American Auditory Society (AAS) Scientific and Technology Meeting was performed jointly by Prof. Harvey Abrams, president of the AAS and Prof. Beth Prieve, president – elect and chairman of the Faculty. The conference has brought together scientists from all the world. Scientific program included 42 oral presentations and 166 posters. Prof. W. Wiktor Jędrzejczak was present as the representative of the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing. From Poland to Scottsdale came also Prof. Mariola Śliwińska-Kowalska from the Institute of Occupational Medicine in Lodz and Dr hab. Krzysztof Morawski from the Medical University of Warsaw.

One of the most key events of the conference was the Carhart lecture, Prof. Raymond Carhart – father of American audiology. This year the Carhart lecture had been awarded to Prof. Michael Gorga. Prof. Beth Prieve had reminded the audience about Prof. Carhart’s achievements, mentioning that his Hirsch index is over 60, which proves how great is his impact on development of medicine. Concluding, Prof. Prieve has asked people in the audience to raise if they have read any publication of Michael Gorga. At that moment all present stood up and applauded.

Prof. Michael Gorga in his lecture titled ‘Examples of tests used in the Clinical Sensory Physiology Laboratory Boys Town National Research Hospital’ had discussed the newest solutions applied in hearing examination such as auditory brainstem responses (ABR) in different age groups, application of ABRs for detecting hearing thresholds and application of TEOAEs and DPOAEs in hearing loss detection.

Other keynote lectures, under the headword ‘applied studies’ had presented: Jonathan Peelle (Ageing, quality of hearing and cascade effects related to perceptual effort), Susan Arndt (Treatment of Single Sided Deafness in adults and children) and Karen J. Cruickshanks (Ageing, hearing and health: the population perspective).

The award for lifetime scientific achievement received Fred Linthicum Jr for his studies of a temporal bone histopathology which had the significant influence on treatment of hearing and balance disorders. In his research he had studied more than 1500 temporal bones.

Closing the conference was the special session titled ‘Treatment of tinnitus’ made up of lectures on pharmacotherapy of tinnitus (Carol A. Bauer), behavioural management (James A. Henry), treatment with application of acoustic and electric stimulation (Fan-Gang Zeng) and a very interesting lecture presented by Steven W. Cheung on control of auditory hallucinations in corpus striatum.