Synopsis of phoniatrics and phoniatricians

There are about 5,3 million people in Finland and 28 phoniatricians (5 males), 5 of us retired specialists. Three doctors are specializing in phoniatrics at the moment. The phoniatricians work mainly in University hospitals (12 posts, some are shared, doctors work part time), one post is in Central hospital and the rest of the Central hospitals get their consultations by visiting phoniatricians and still two posts are in Helsinki Health Care Centre (an out patient clinic for children). Some of us have double specialities and may hold an office in the other speciality and work as a phoniatrician only in the private sector for some hours a month. Specializing in phoniatrics takes five years.

Phoniatrics is an indepedent speciality in Finland and has been over 60 years. We work in close co-operation with the ent specialists and clinics. One of us works as a phono surgeon in ent (he has both ent and phoniatric speciality like three other of us who have phoniatric posts). Otherwise phoniatrics is a non operative, i.e. conservative, field in Finland. About half of the work is done with children with problems with voice, language and speech and the other half with adults with voice and swallowing problems, mainly. The everyday work varies with the hospital in question.

The Finnish Society of Phoniatricians holds two annual meetings with scientific or educational program in Finnish. Every some years we meet with our Swedish or Estonian colleagues and hold these meetings in English instead. In the coming year we are having our meetings in Finnish. Most of us take annually part also in the meetings of the societies of Finnish Otorhinolaryngologists or Audiologists, the Society of Speech and Language and so on according to one's interests and work. Many of us are also active in the scientific field; ten of us have a doctoral degree and one is about to get the degree next June.

The future of phoniatrics in Finland is looking a bit grim as three of us are retiring within the next three years and four more within eight coming years. We are hoping to get some more posts for doctors to specialize in phoniatrics to fill in the need and shed new light for the field.

Mari Qvarnström MD PhD, Chairwoman of the Finnish Society of Phoniatricians, Kuopio, Finland
Sarkku Vilpas MD, Secretary of the Finnish Society of Phoniatricians, Helsinki, Finland