Austin Ear Clinic

I’ve seen Dr. Slater for the last 12 years. I’ve never had any issues with him or his staff. Everyone is always friendly and helpful. I highly recommend him to friends and family for any and all ENT/​Allergies problems.

Dr. Slater is a very skilled doctor. It is easy to schedule appts. here, they are pretty fast. All the staff is helpful and competent. Nobody is actually friendly and Dr. Slater had no bedside manner but they are all very professional. I needed a surgery 3 doctors had been hesitant to perform and very pessimistic about the outcome. Dr. Slater’s confidence persuaded me to go ahead with it and it was successful.

In July I had a cerebral angiogram to evaluate possible causes of my pulsatile tinnitus. The results were all clear, but at my follow-​up appointment the NIR recalled that Dr. Slater at Austin Ear Clinic was running a study to evaluate a surgical intervention for PT. I was desperate for relief, if not answers, so off I went to another specialist.
As the only otologist in Austin, Dr. Slater keeps a rather busy schedule. It took a few weeks to get in for an appointment, but once there I was seen quickly and had in-​depth discussions about my condition with both Dr. Slater and Mr. Clark, one of his PA’s. Dr. Slater discussed the surgical option, but wanted me first to be tested for intracranial hypertension since it’s a contraindication to cranial surgery. Meanwhile, he promised to look over the results of my previous scans.
So off I went to a neurologist for a lumbar puncture, where lo and behold I discovered that 1) I did have intracranial hypertension and 2) that was the root cause of my PT. Well cool, no surgery needed (hopefully).
At the follow-​up visit, we discussed the results and how it meant I couldn’t/shouldn’t have the surgery, but probably didn’t need to anyway. We chatted about surgical methodology a bit and I informed him further on some other cutting edge work being done on the East Coast to diagnose and treat causes of pulsatile tinnitus. It was very refreshing to have a doctor talk to me like an actual intelligent human being rather than just a know-​nothing layperson.
Reasons for only 4 stars:
1) Even after I got the intracranial hypertension diagnosis back, Dr. Slater (or at least his audiologists) insisted I still come in for extensive audiological/​balance testing. That was interesting in its own right, but was still 2 hours of my time and another specialist copay out of my pocketbook. So meh.
2) I didn’t get the impression that he’d looked at my imaging studies, just the reports. I was really hoping to have another trained eye take a look at them, since sometimes radiologists can miss something.
But, overall a good practice. Busy, but good.