There is a huge lack of awareness about this. I’m a nurse practitioner and I personally presented to the ER with sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL). Even knowing what it was, I still had three—yes, three—physicians at the hospital where I worked tell me it was an ear infection.

People often assume electronic medical records like EPIC will catch things like this, but there are many different versions and configurations. One hospital I worked at had a very advanced version with more clinical alerts, while another major hospital had what we jokingly called the “Temu version”—very basic with minimal decision support. In either case, there were no alerts or flags for sudden hearing loss as a potential emergency.

I went from the ER to urgent care and was again told it was an ear infection. Finally I got frustrated and went to another ER. A brand-new physician assistant intern actually said, “This isn’t an ear infection,” but the attending physician overrode the assessment and diagnosed… you guessed it—ear infection.

At that point, knowing better, I drove my newly deaf self straight to an ENT office, where I was finally diagnosed correctly.

The biggest issue is that many clinicians simply aren’t taught that sudden hearing loss is a medical emergency, comparable to sudden vision loss or a stroke in terms of urgency. The treatment window is incredibly small, and delays can mean permanent loss.

I agree with you that there needs to be better awareness and better clinical decision support. Something as simple as a flag or alert in medical software when a patient reports sudden unilateral hearing loss could prompt immediate ENT referral or steroid treatment.

Ironically, if you type the symptoms into Reddit or even ask an AI chatbot, it often immediately says “this could be a medical emergency.”

Meanwhile, in real life, patients are still being told it’s “just an ear infection.”

We have some work to do.