Mark A. Fritz, MD - UK HealthCare

For more information visit https://ukhealthcare.uky.edu/doctors/....

Transcript:
[MUSIC PLAYING] I'm Mark Fritz. I'm Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgury at the University of Kentucky. I'm always fascinated by our physiology in terms of how it made us sick and how we ticked. In college I did biomechanical engineering because I was fascinated with literally how it ticked and how you could make it work better. And then that led into medical school. And I really enjoyed ear, nose and throat and head and neck surgery for the very reason, because it's so functional in terms of our everyday lives, being able to utilize everything in our head.

My specialty is in laryngology, so that's airway, voice, and swallowing disorders. That runs the gamut of anybody who has a tickle in their throat to somebody who's had swelling problems their whole life to somebody who has a vocal fold paralysis to somebody has a trache and they can't breathe without it. I really like to treat every patient that comes in my door like they were family.

I like to know where they come from. I like to know what disease do they have, but also how does this disease affect their everyday life. What are they really trying to do? Are they trying to go to church on Sunday? Are they trying to sing in the choir? Are they trying to swallow enough to where they can be comfortable at Thanksgiving dinner? Just really know what is it that they're trying to get to be better in their life.

I really love the University of Kentucky here in terms of what it affords me to be able to do as to teach medical students, to teach residents, to work with other researchers and clinicians all throughout the campus and all throughout the state of Kentucky. It really has a wonderful ability to be a referral network for the whole state and beyond, in order to draw the patients to one facility to where we can treat them the best that we can.

One of the things that I do here that is not offered at many other places is in-office treatment of various laryngeal problems, in terms of injecting vocal folds, in terms of diagnosing esophageal problems with dysphagia and swallowing problems, and even diagnosing breathing troubles with airway stenosis patients. Be able to do that in the office without having to go to the operating room affords greater flexibility for the patient, as well as myself, in terms of not having to go to the operating room, of avoiding general anesthesia, as in getting that diagnosis quicker and treatment quicker.

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