What We Got Right, What We Got Wrong, and What Comes Next

After decades of tinnitus research and clinical practice, the field has accumulated more than scientific evidence. It has also accumulated experience: ideas that endured, assumptions that proved mistaken, treatments that changed practice, and knowledge that may have been overlooked or forgotten.

The Long View will bring together senior members of the hearing and tinnitus community whose careers span several decades. They will reflect candidly on the development of their respective fields and consider:

• What did we get right?
• What did we get wrong?
• Which ideas have stood the test of time?
• What valuable knowledge have we forgotten?
• What should the next generation preserve, reconsider or leave behind?
• What should come next, and what is genuinely feasible here and now?

This will be an interactive panel discussion rather than a series of formal lectures. Panellists will be encouraged to respond to one another, compare perspectives and explore areas of agreement and disagreement.

The Owl of Minerva

The panel is symbolised by Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, and her owl.

Hegel famously wrote that the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the coming of dusk. His image suggests that wisdom often arrives retrospectively. Only after a period has unfolded can we begin to understand its achievements, failures and wider significance.

The Long View invites its panellists to look back from this point of reflection and examine the history of tinnitus and hearing care with the clarity that can come only from sustained experience.

Yet retrospection alone is not enough. Kierkegaard observed that life must be understood backwards but lived forwards. In the symbolism of this panel, understanding may come after dusk, but living takes place before dusk, while outcomes remain uncertain and the full meaning of our choices cannot yet be known.

Clinical practice, research and the lives of people experiencing tinnitus cannot wait for the owl to take flight. Decisions must be made, care must be provided and new directions must be chosen in the incomplete light of the present.

The owl therefore represents both the value and the limitation of hindsight. The purpose of the panel is not simply to revisit the past, nor to predict a distant future. It is to use accumulated wisdom to help the field move forwards more thoughtfully.

Panel Members

Participation in The Long View panel is by invitation only.

Confirmed panellists:

• Professor Brian C. J. Moore (UK)
• Professor James W. Hall III (USA)
• Professor Birgit Mazurek (Germany)

Further panellists will be announced.