Broadly understood clinical and scientific cooperation, sharing of experience and training for doctors from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan was the subject matter of two cooperation agreements signed in August 2019 between Independent public hospital No 1 in Shymkent (Kazakhstan) and District children’s hospital in Osh (Kyrgyzstan). The initiator and coordinator of both these agreements is Prof. Henryk Skarżyński, director of the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing.

The scientific cooperation will focus, among other things, on preparing joint research projects, scientific exchange and supporting specialists from Asian Middle East in demonstration surgeries e.g. inserting cochlear implants or middle ear implants.

As a result of the agreements, medical consultations and diagnostic tests are already conducted in the facilities in Shymkent and Osh by otolaryngologists, audiologists, speech therapists and hearing aid technicians. Specialists are setting and servicing hearing implant systems, as well as helping to select modern hearing aids. The facilities also use telemedicine solutions – which means that they can arrange distance consultations with specialists from Poland, and offer telefitting, i.e. remote fitting of a cochlear implant system in Kazakh and Kirghiz patients by a doctor based in Poland.

During their stay in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, representatives of the Institute also participated in scientific conferences, which were officially opened and led by Prof.  Henryk Skarżyński. In Kazakhstan, at the Research and training conference entitled “Current guidelines in otolaryngology and audiology”, and in Kyrgyzstan, at the conference entitled “Modern solutions in diagnostics, treatment and rehabilitation of patients with hearing problems”, members of the team from the Institute delivered two lectures: “New directions in diagnostics, treatment and rehabilitation of patients in otolaryngology” by Prof. Piotr H. Skarżyński and “Rehabilitation of patients after cochlear implantation” by Agnieszka Pankowska, MSc.

Participants of both the conferences listened to all the lectures with great interest and showed huge appreciation of the achievements of Prof. Henryk Skarżyński, highlighting the importance of a systemic approach to solving problems, cooperation of an interdisciplinary team of specialists and early diagnostics of hearing disorders.

The idea of implementing agreements of this type can be put into practice thanks to the wide scale international cooperation, as part of which employees of the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing will test the hearing of several hundred children from that region of the world, among other things.