By, Barbara Liss Chertok

Volta Voices, March/April 1995, pages 6-7.

Carolyn Stern was born in Smithtown, NY, the first of three girls, to a hearing family. Her hearing loss was a result of the maternal rubella (German measles) epidemic of 1964 when 4,000 babies were born with hearing losses. Carolyn challenged the odds to become one of a handful of deaf, female physicians in the country-the only deaf physician in Illinois and one of a few physicians in the U .S. with cochlear implants.

Carolyn's maternal grandmother suspected something was wrong when Carolyn was eight months old, but the pediatrician did not believe her. At 15 months old, Carolyn was visiting her great grandmother in Florida when a relative blew a whistle, to prove she would not respond. She did not. When her family returned home they immediately had her tested, and she was diagnosed with a moderate to severe hearing loss. One physician told her mother, "Don't expect Carolyn to speak. Send her to a deaf school to learn sign language." But her mother said, "No, she will be mainstreamed."

Carolyn was subsequently fitted with hearing aids, which allowed her to function like a child who has a mild to moderate hearing loss. She received speech therapy, reinforced by her family at home. By age two, she could read.

Carolyn's mother never wavered in her decision to mainstream her daughter. However, her public school teachers in New York did not quite know how to teach a child who is deaf. When Carolyn was 10, her father got a job in Maryland, and Carolyn was mainstreamed into the Montgomery County school system. She did much better in this excellent program, though few support services were available, other than auditory training and speech therapy a few times a week.

In high school, Carolyn had notetakers in her more difficult classes. Her biology and anatomy and physiology teacher, William Cummings, who had epilepsy, became her role model. She enjoyed his classes so much that she decided to become a doctor.

At the end of high school, Carolyn debated between engineering, polymer science, and medicine. "But I was not going to be premed," she emphasizes. "I wanted a career with a backup, in case I didn't make it into medical school." Carolyn always loved going to her doctor and asking why he did certain things. She also enjoyed taking care of people because she had been cared for so well. And she liked the fact that she would always learn new things.

Carolyn went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland where she was awarded a four-year half-tuition scholarship. She also received the first of two Elsie Bell Grosvenor scholarships from the Bell Association.

Case Western was a private university then and the ADA had not yet been implemented, so the university was not required to provide Carolyn with interpreters. Instead, she used notetakers, doing so well she spent her junior year studying in England.

Carolyn remembers a funny incident that happened while she was in college. Her roommate was being awakened at two or three o'clock every morning by a telephone prankster. Carolyn never knew about it because she never heard the phone ring after removing her hearing aids. One night, her roommate, tired of being bothered, woke Carolyn up.

"This was when I could still use the phone, even though I couldn't make out what was being said," she explains. "I asked the person on the phone to speak up and, all of a sudden, I heard loud breathing on the other end of the line. So I said, 'I'm deaf, could you please speak up some more?' And the person started breathing heavier. Well, I think he must have passed out due to hyperventilation because I never heard the phone hang up. He never called again!

"Another amusing thing that happened in college was that I would sit up in the front of class and people would ask me for my notes. I guess the smart ones sit up front-whether or not it's because they can't hear is beside the point," she laughs.

In medical school at Chicago's Northwestern University, Carolyn used an FM system in lectures her first two years. If the classes had much discussion, she used an interpreter. She also used an interpreter in surgery.

Acute labyrinthitis (inner ear infection) resulted in the loss of 10 to 15 decibels of hearing in her good ear at the beginning of her residency at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL. "I was no longer able to pick up the phone to call someone. I had to rely much more on interpreters," she remembers. "It was the most difficult year I ever had to go through."

After only one month of residency, Carolyn considered leaving medicine because of her increased hearing loss. After a year of coping, feeling depressed, and debating her options, she decided after coming that far, she was going to finish what she had started.

Carolyn chose family practice because of something she remembers her pediatrician saying: "You're too old for me to take care of now. ..you need to find another doctor." She says, "That made me decide I wanted to be a doctor who treated all ages." This decision was reinforced when she went through her medical school rotations. "I couldn't see myself indulging in only one specialty for the rest of my life. I crave variety, and I sometimes like not having to do everything that the subspecialists have to do. I like knowing my patients, what they I need, and caring for them. I do the whole gamut: deliver babies and take care of them; children, adults, everyone."

When asked if, as a physician who is deaf, she uses any different methods or tools in treating her patients, she explains, "First, I listen carefully to the patient's history. Eighty percent of the time I know what's wrong just from listening to them. I use an amplified stethoscope, but I am looking for something a little more reliable, such as a digital or pictorial one. I also use an alphanumeric pager which transmits messages to me. For help with telephone calls, I use an interpreter."

In a little over a year, Carolyn's practice has grown to nearly 2,000 patients-more than 150 of whom are deaf or hard of hearing. She has become fairly fluent m American Sign Language and sometimes uses her assistant/interpreter to help her understand what a patient is saying. She has a number of Spanish-speaking patients and speaks Spanish fairly well. "But it can be tough to understand them sometimes, especially if they have a strong accent," she says. She uses the relay or an interpreter to call her patients who have normal hearing.

Does a doctor who is deaf relate to her patients who are deaf differently than she does to her hearing patients? "I'm sure I do," she says. "But I think my bedside manner is the same with all of them. I sit and listen to them and wait until they are finished speaking before I interrupt. I work very hard at this. I have to look at them, I can't look away. I think they like that, as opposed to a doctor who doesn't look at them when they are talking and may be busy writing in the chart at the same time."

Carolyn feels she receives fairly normal treatment from some of her colleagues, but they sometimes forget she is deaf and do not remember to look at her when they speak. She finds some teachers and faculty to be almost condescending, while others make too much of an effort. "1 am still trying to educate some of them," she says.

Does she worry that a miscommunication might result in a malpractice , suit? "Sure, but I don't lose sleep over it. I feel I am more likely to be sued for something other than a misunderstanding."

In 1991, Carolyn received a Nucleus 22 Channel Cochlear Implant. She decided to get it after her bout with acute labyrinthitis, when her hearing fluctuated for about six months and several attacks of vertigo required hospitalization. After waiting a year, she realized her hearing was not coming back. Her hearing aids were of little help, and she was having great difficulty understanding people. Exhausted from trying to read lips, she thought she might I only be able to work part-time. She felt it was for her own good and for the good of her patients that she go ahead with the implant. Dr. Richard Wiet of the Chicago Otology Group in Hinsdale, IL, performed the surgery at Northwestern University Hospital.

The year after she received her implant involved a great deal of work for Carolyn. Residency took up 70 to 100 hours per week, and she was trying to squeeze in two to three hours each week for mapping her speech processor and auditory training. "Thank goodness for my sense of humor," she says. "I don't think I would have gotten through without it. Also, my family was very supportive. They always believed in me and in what I could do. That was a major source of inspiration. My friends, both hearing and deaf, were also very helpful."

For Carolyn, what she understands through speechreading and what she hears with her implant work very well together. Her speech understanding without lipreading varies depending upon the speaker-about 30 to 50 percent. She still does not hear as well on the phone as she would like. "But I do enjoy music-especially my favorite, Billy Joel," she smiles. "Also, with the implant, I am not as exhausted as before, and I'm able to concentrate better knowing I can hear better."

In 1993, at a synagogue social event in Chicago for hearing and deaf people, Carolyn met her future husband, Al Spanjer, who is a printer broker. They started dating and were married a year, later. Al, who is hearing, is one of seven children in a family whose parents are, well known in the deaf community, and he is fluent in sign language.

Carolyn learned sign language in the eleventh grade but did not use it often until medical school when she began using interpreters. " Although my primary mode of communication is still oral in many ways, signing helps me to communicate because lipreading alone is very hard on the eyes and tires me out," she says. "I have many deaf patients who sign, and after a full day in the office, speaking three languages at times, I prefer signing and talking at the same time with my husband."

To unwind, Carolyn watches TV, plays cards, exercises, and talks with her husband. She likes to do needlework, too, but rarely finds the time for it. Reading, racquetball, and outings with friends are other pastimes.

For people who are deaf and who aspire to become doctors, Carolyn has this advice: "First, I would tell them it's not easy;" she says. "There is much to overcome. You need flexibility, diplomacy, stubbornness, humor, the ability to educate, etc. Then, if you still want to do it-go for it! We need more of us out there."