Hear Effort Travels to Costa Rica

PALO ALTO, CA - April 2003 - HEAR Effort, a newly established charitable organization sponsored by California Ear Institute at Stanford, recently announced that it has expanded its efforts to Costa Rica. HEAR Effort provides assistance to those in need of services, education, training or research related to hearing loss and diseases of the ear. Joseph Roberson, M.D., president of HEAR Effort, Medical Director of the cochlear implant program and CEO and Managing Partner of California Ear Institute at Stanford, and his team visited San Jose, Costa Rica, to hold a two-hour symposium for local hearing health professionals describing the process and art of cochlear implantation.

While there, Dr. Roberson performed the first Cochlear Nucleus® 24 Contour™ cochlear implant surgery in Costa Rica on a three-year-old girl who was born deaf. Hoping to establish a cochlear implant program in the country, HEAR Effort board members also met with the office of the First Lady to propose a jointly sponsored educational program with HEAR Effort, California Ear Institute and the Costa Rican Government. Further visits to Costa Rica are planned.

"As part of the HEAR Effort outreach, it is our desire to reach out to the global community to provide the medical training and resources necessary to help patients suffering from hearing disorders worldwide," said Joseph Roberson, M.D." We are working with partners in the field to help us achieve this. For example, we plan to use Cochlear Americas' Audiological Remote Consulting (ARC) software, which allows for cochlear implant programming and software troubleshooting to occur remotely via the Internet, to facilitate our efforts in opening further developing world markets."

HEAR Effort is holding its 2003 Annual HEAR Effort Symposium on June 22-23, 2003. Heather Whitestone McCallum, former Miss America and recent Cochlear Nucleus® 24 Contour™ implant recipient, will be special guest at the program. For more information about the symposium, please call 650.462.3149 or email alink@heareffort.com.

About HEAR Effort>B

HEAR Effort, based in Palo Alto, CA, is a newly established charitable organization whose purpose is to provide care to those who suffer with hearing disease and loss, to educate doctors and hearing health professionals around the world on the latest procedures through training at Stanford and mission trips to developing third world countries, and to conduct research studies and seek cures to diseases of the ear. Through the sponsorship of CEI at Stanford and the personal involvement and leadership of Dr. Joseph Roberson, more than 40 research projects have been initiated. For more information about Hear Effort, please visit www.HearEffort.org.

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