When she joined University of Colorado Anschutz two years ago, Yuri Agrawal, MD, knew it was a place where she could make things happen.
As she accepted the reins of the Department of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery at the CU Anschutz School of Medicine, Agrawal was aware of the work of Marion Downs, a longtime faculty member who, decades before, fought for hearing screening for all infants and won. Downs is now considered the pioneer of pediatric audiology.
It’s a legacy Agrawal works to honor by continuing the department’s mission of discovering and providing life-changing care.
“We deal with very human aspects of life,” Agrawal said. “Being able to hear, speak, smell and make facial expressions are the things that define us as humans.”
Never Dream Alone, a newly launched advertising campaign, highlights the work of Yuri Agrawal, MD, and her team along with other members of the CU Anschutz community. A special project done in collaboration with the Colorado Symphony, the ad campaign underscores how great things come when people work together. See related stories:
Agrawal gained a broad appreciation of communication’s social, educational and cultural impacts growing up in Canada, learning to speak the native languages of her country (English and French) and of her parents (Japanese and Hindi).
While her training and expertise cover everything from ringing in the ears to cancer of the neck, Agrawal specialized in otology and neurotology, an area focused on disorders of the ear and of the nerves that connect the ear to the brain.
Below, she shares more about two goals related to her specialty area – gene therapy and the cochlear implant, which she calls a “miracle” of medical progress as the first tool to completely replace a lost sense through direct stimulation of the brain.