Thinking about presenting at the AudA 2025 Conference? Whether you’re a researcher, seasoned practitioner, a clinical manager, or someone who has just started their career – presenting at the conference can be beneficial, not just to raise your own profile, but to upskill your fellow audiologists with your unique insights.
Best Clinical Presentation Award-Winner Melisha Sirisena at the AudA 2023 Conference (picture supplied).
A couple of years ago, AudA Accredited Audiologist Melisha Sirisena decided to present at the AudA 2023 Conference. Drawing on her varied experiences in clinical practice in Australia and abroad in Singapore, the audiologist took out the Best Clinical Presentation Award for her topic “When your clinical instinct trumps the Doctor and the Literature: Go with your Gut”.
To raise awareness about the benefits of presenting, Melisha chatted with AudA about her conference topic and the value for her in presenting at Australia’s largest hearing health event.
Hi Melisha, can you briefly tell us about your current role?
Sure, I work in paediatric audiology at The Children’s Hospital Westmead in Sydney. My work involves behavioural and electrophysiological assessment of hearing in children – newborns to 18 years – who are referred to us from doctors within the hospital, SWISH (NSW State Wide Infant Screening Hearing Program), community pediatricians and doctors and other audiologists.
Ultimately our role is to assess hearing, delicately counsel and engage the families and provide results to the next medical teams to assist their decision making around a diagnosis, investigations needed, treatment plans, surgery outcomes and discharge planning.
What was your AudA 2023 Conference presentation about?
My presentation was titled “When your clinical instinct trumps the Doctor and the Literature: Go with your Gut”.
It centered around a paediatric haematology case and highlighted the importance of acknowledging gut feelings, intuition and instinct in clinical reasoning and using it as a catalyst to drive further investigation. We rely heavily on clinical guidelines and the advice of doctors who can sometimes have “tunnel vision”, overlooking a differential diagnosis.
In this case I followed my instinct and went against the clinic guidelines and the doctor to further investigate; I uncovered a very unique and rare type of conductive hearing loss which I published with Dr Cathy Birman.
How and why did you come to present at the conference?
I feel it’s a duty, important for audiologists to disseminate our knowledge to ensure the benefits are passed onto colleagues. “Normal” everyday work is insightful for someone else. Presenting allows for knowledge transaction within the profession and gives rise to positive practice change.
What was the value for you in presenting?
To raise our paediatric diagnostic profile, we are a niche area within the audiological scope of practice but an important one. Chances are in NSW if you have a complex child with a hearing loss, they’re known to us as well. Many of them start with us. I wanted to represent our team, connect with others and showcase our work. For me, presenting also increased my confidence and I have now presented at other conferences too.
Why would you encourage other audiologists to present at the AudA 2025 Conference?
The case studies I’ve presented, I have been told has been impactful to others and cultivated their capacity for decision-making and action. It’s important to consider presenting interesting cases / ideas, anything you feel is pertinent, you never know, your presentation can inspire someone else’s professional practice and management.