Most audiology conferences are built around audiology, and there is real value in that. But if you spend your days working in an ENT practice, hospital, health system, university, or academic medical center, your work rarely begins and ends inside the audiology department. Your patients move between audiology and otolaryngology, your test results often help guide larger treatment decisions, and your day may include conversations with surgeons, APPs, therapists, administrators, students, researchers, and other members of the care team.
That is what MedAudPro means by medical audiology: audiology practiced within the context of broader medical care. It is collaborative, fast-paced, and often complex. Audiologic information is not simply the end result of an appointment. It becomes part of a larger decision about what happens next for the patient, whether that means surgery, additional testing, rehabilitation, medical management, referral, or continued monitoring.
That is also what makes the Florida Combined Otolaryngology Meeting, FCOM, such a different kind of meeting for audiologists. MedAudPro is bringing medical audiology front and center at the 30th Annual FCOM, November 12–15, 2026, at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa in Orlando. The audiology program includes more than 14 hours of continuing education, but the real value of FCOM is bigger than the number of CE hours. It is the opportunity to learn alongside the people we actually work with.
Medical Audiology Is Part of a Bigger Clinical Picture
There is tremendous value in audiologists learning from other audiologists. We need time to compare approaches, challenge each other, talk about what is happening in our clinics, and learn from people solving similar problems in different systems. But for audiologists practicing in medical environments, that is only part of the picture.
If you work in or around ENT, your day may involve an otologist, neurotologist, general otolaryngologist, APP, physical therapist, speech-language pathologist, researcher, administrator, audiology assistant, resident, or medical student. The best answer for the patient often comes from understanding how those perspectives fit together, and FCOM is intentionally designed around that kind of interaction.
The meeting brings otolaryngology, medical audiology, facial plastics, allergy, sleep, rhinology, head and neck care, laryngology, advanced practice, research, and industry into the same conference environment. Audiologists are encouraged to move between sessions rather than stay within a single professional lane. That is what makes the meeting so relevant to medical audiology. If you practice audiology in otolaryngology but only attend meetings where audiologists are talking to other audiologists, you are hearing only part of the patient-care conversation.
Melissa Hall, AuD, CCC-A/SLP, described FCOM as a place that allows providers across hearing healthcare to connect in a way that does not always happen at profession-specific meetings. She also highlighted the combination of cutting-edge developments, practical clinical application, and national experts who are accessible within a collaborative state meeting.
Check out the Medical Audiology Agenda!
Cochlear implants are an important part of medical audiology, and FCOM has built a strong CI program for 2026. The meeting begins Thursday with a hands-on cochlear implant programming workshop in partnership with the Institute for Cochlear Implant Training (ICIT), including labs from Advanced Bionics, Cochlear, and MED-EL, followed by clinical demonstrations and discussion. Friday continues with adult and pediatric candidacy, real-world decision-making, referral, counseling, and a surgical overview for non-CI providers.
But medical audiology is much broader than cochlear implants, and so is the meeting. Friday afternoon includes a full tinnitus program focused on evidence, management, and practical decision-making before referral. That is followed by a multidisciplinary concussion program examining recovery, auditory and vestibular injury, and the role of audiology, medicine, and physical therapy. The day also includes falls-risk management, another issue that increasingly sits at the intersection of audiology and broader medical care.
Saturday expands the conversation further with Differentiating Medical Audiology Care in ENT, bone-anchored hearing systems, single-sided deafness, a multidisciplinary tumor board, controversies in cochlear implants, and modern approaches to sensorineural hearing loss. Sunday turns toward the future with Pushing the Limits: What’s Next in Medical Audiology and a roundtable focused on solving the real challenges facing medical audiology practices.
That breadth matters. Medical audiology includes cochlear implantation, vestibular diagnostics, hearing technology, tinnitus, pediatric care, surgical support, diagnostics, rehabilitation, research, operations, leadership, and much more. The common thread is not one approach or one subspecialty. It is practicing audiology as part of a larger medical care team.
Check it out at FCOMnow.com