From the Editor - Open Fitting Series, New CTA Program

As June is just around the corner, you're probably wrapping up your Better Speech & Hearing month activities, and like me, now looking ahead to summer.

While I'm late in planning my family's vacation this year, fortunately I did plan the AudiologyOnline summer seminar schedule well in advance. I'm excited for the topics and presenters we have coming up, so I thought I'd tell you a bit about them in the hopes that you can join us.

A Man, A Plan, Vandy

Back in December, I gave Gus Mueller a call, or rather an email, to ask for his expertise in putting together a seminar series for us on open fittings. As you know, over the past few years we've seen a shift in our industry where BTEs now dominate the market, mainly because of the new form factors and open fitting possibilities. Exciting stuff, but what works, what doesn't and what are best practices when it comes to fitting open canal hearing aids? In true Gus fashion, he put together a dynamite educational program. He enlisted some of the leading names in audiology - his colleagues at Vanderbilt University - to help us sort this out. In June, please join us for a four-part live eSeminar series, "Selecting and Fitting Open-Canal Hearing Aids: The Vanderbilt Perspective" that will cover many aspects of open fittings with a focus on practical clinical techniques and issues. Presenters include Gus, along with Drs. Dickinson, Hornsby and Ricketts. All courses are CE eligible, click the links above or see our homepage for more details.

Sunscreen and CEUs

Two things you may want to stock up on this summer. While we can't help you with the sunscreen, as you know, we have hundreds of CE eligible courses. Depending on the course, we offer CEUs from AAA, ASHA, IIHIS, CAA, CASLPA and now even the California Hearing Aid Dispensers Bureau. We also work hard to bring you the courses that you require to maintain your state licensure such as ethics, infection control, preventing medical errors and others. Under our new expanded CEU Total Access (CTA) program, as of June 1st, all courses on the site will be free to view and for $99/year you can earn unlimited CEUs from all the CE courses in our extensive library. For more information, please give us a call at 800-753-2160 . We hope you, like us, believe this is the best CEU value in the industry and that you become a CTA member if you're not one already.

News and Around the Web

My friend and colleague, Associate Editor Kristi Albers, does an exhaustive Web search each month to collect news stories about audiology and hearing loss for our feature Around the Web. Caution: kind of like Dairy Queen, this feature is addicting - each time I devour it I am left wanting more. Kristi also helps compile our featured news stories, some of which you can find in the sidelinks on the right of this email.

Well, I'm off to "dance in the streets" about the AO summer schedule. Thanks to Paul for passing me the Monthly Review spot this time around. And thanks to you for reading!

Best regards,

Carolyn M. Smaka, Au.D.
Managing Editor, AudiologyOnline