Beyond the Programme: Why Cutting Edge Laryngology 2026 is Unmissable

In this special episode of BLA Connections: A Clear Voice, host Natalie Watson is joined by BLA President Nicholas Gibbins and President-Elect Chadwan Al Yaghchi to look ahead to Cutting Edge Laryngology 2026, the BLA’s biggest and most ambitious meeting yet.

Nick and Chad explore how Cutting Edge Laryngology has evolved since 2011 and why it offers something traditional conferences and published papers cannot: honest, practical insight into what leading clinicians are doing right now. They also discuss the power of multidisciplinary collaboration, opportunities for emerging researchers and the ideas that can change clinical practice on Monday morning.

Why should you attend Cutting Edge?

As you listen, Nick and Chad explain why they believe Cutting Edge is an unmissable meeting and here are a few of their thoughts:

• Hear what leading clinicians and researchers are doing now—not only what has already reached publication
• Take home practical insights that could change your clinical practice on Monday morning
• Learn from more than 70 speakers from the UK and around the world
• Explore robotics, AI, laryngeal pacing and emerging treatments for vocal fold scarring
• Discover new research through over 60 posters, oral presentations and three free-paper sessions
• Learn alongside surgeons, speech and language therapists, trainees, researchers and industry partners
• Make valuable connections and become part of a growing multidisciplinary community
• Experience the inaugural Hackathon and practical ergonomics workshop

Contact Information
Visit www.britishlaryngological.org and our podcast library.

Cutting Edge Laryngology 2026 registration is now open: Register here

Email: enquiries@britishlaryngological.org for any questions or topic suggestions you may have for future episodes.

This show is brought to you by the BLA; you can follow us on  X, Linkedin and Instagram hosted by Natalie Watson @surgeonsinger, produced  and directed by Heather Pownall of Heather's Media Hub Ltd and award-winning producer. 

The opinions of our host and guests are their own; The BLA does not endorse any individual viewpoints, given products or companies. 
If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate, review and subscribe with the podcast provider of your choice.

Transcript

Welcome And 2026 Preview

Natalie 0:16

Welcome to BLA Connections at Clear Voice. I'm your host, Natalie Watson, and I'm delighted to bring you discussions and insights from experts from across the globe on all things laryngology. We are now in the run-up to cutting edge laryngology 2026, the BLA's flagship conference. With more than 70 speakers and over 60 poster presentations, this promises to be the most ambitious cutting-edge meeting yet. In today's episodes, we have the President of the BLA, Nicholas Gibbons, and the President-elect, Chadwan Alici, consultant laryngologists in London to take us through the cutting edge journey and what to expect. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us today.

Chad 1:01

Thank you for having us, Natalie.

Nick 1:02

Always a pleasure. So thank

Building A Conference Around Innovation

Nick 1:05

you very much. It's absolutely brilliant to be here. So can't wait to have a chat.

Natalie 1:09

Brilliant. So, Chad, I'm gonna kick off with you. You have created and organized the scientific program since 2011. It's the dawn of time of the BLA. How has cutting edge evolved?

Chad 1:23

Uh yeah, I can't believe it's been 15 years. I was I was ST3, I was year one registrar with my first cutting edge, so it's came came a long way. No, it's been it's been brilliant and it's been getting bigger and bigger. Every time I said, uh, this is our biggest cutting edge to date. And then the next one is I like to think bigger and better. Um it evolved, it evolved gradually. We started with a very ambitious project, where there was nothing like it at the time when we first started, and we wanted to have this program that just breaks the mold a little bit from all what felt like a repetitive educational space for laryngology. Everybody's talking about the same subject, voice analysis, all of that stuff, which is great and it is you know essential part of what we do. But it's not all we do in laryngology. There was so much else that we can bring apart from voice, and there is innovation that was happening across the globe around that time in that 2011-2010 time from um you know um tissue engineering to new technology coming, robotics were coming, you know, like there was very a lot of innovation, new endoscopy capability, and we wanted a space for everyone who's doing something innovative, something new, something fresh, to have one space when they can present all of that and showcase what they're doing to the whole laryngology community. And that was the ethos of the program. And I and I feel that we we stuck to that throughout. We always have these sessions where it's a bit different from our normal scientific meeting when we have a bit more straightforward educational uh structure. Here we'll have both. So we'll have that innovative part, but we also have the educational side and we allow space for people to do a lot of this is how I do it type sessions, you know, allowing the people with a bit of creative flair to bring and tell us what they've been doing and create that space for everyone to discuss.

Natalie 3:18

Brilliant. Well, I mean, it really has evolved and it is getting better and better and better. It was amazing at the beginning, and I just I don't know where we're gonna end. But uh, what makes 2026 conference particularly special?

Chad 3:32

Um well, uh like what I say every single time, the program is the best ever. So, but no, in in all seriousness, it's genuinely a very good program. Uh we have very, very high caliber speakers from across the globe. Uh I lost the count how many uh speakers, colleagues from the states are coming. We have amazing names from Europe joining us

What’s New In 2026

Chad 3:55

and all the way to Asia and Japan. And we're covering all aspects. We're we have sessions on robotic, we have technological advances, we have um new new takes on you know, like uh PRP, growth factor, all of that, managing all of these difficult aspects of laryngology. And it's it's promising to be fantastic. So we'll we'll see. Hopefully the program will live to everyone's expectation.

Natalie 4:22

I'm sure it will. I'm sure it will. So, Nick, from your perspective as BLA president, how important has cutting edge become to the BLA and the wider laryngology community?

Nick 4:34

Well, the the cutting edge really is uh an absolute pinnacle of uh what is going on in laryngology, not just in the UK, but around the world. And and as Chad was saying as well, speakers coming from all over the world, and they really want to come and speak at Cutting Edge because it is I mean, we're we're gonna say this because we're the BLA, but uh arguably the the best laryngology conference in the world, and I like to think it is, and and in in no small part to Chad's enormous efforts over the last 15 years. Um in terms of when when we started a long time ago, there weren't really any fellowships in the UK for laryngology. There were a few of us doing laryngology, and we kind of found our way a little bit and um we learnt a bit as we went along, and a lot of it is as I'm sure a lot of our listeners will will be familiar with, is is reading papers and going, oh that's interesting, but there isn't very much of yeah, as Chad said, how do I do it? How do I actually do this thing? And what is the the actual cutting edge? Because you only get published once you've done the stuff and it's gone through peer review and you've got the data, and that takes quite a long time. So the field's already moved on by the time you've read the papers. So um having this, first of all, this the the the pinnacle of the pyramid is is this cutting edge, and it lit-and that's the perfect name for it, because it really is what is happening right now across the world. And I have picked up every meeting, I've picked up so many little bits and pieces that have over time radically changed my practice. And just in terms of even really simple things like anaesthetizing the throat properly to get a proper biopsy or something as simple as that. And you pick it up from people from all over the world, and they say, I've tried this and I've tried this, and you're going, Oh, I've tried that as well, and it didn't work for me. They said, Well, now I do it like this. And you go, Well, that's brilliant. So there's that sort of really practical

Why Cutting Edge Improves Practice

Nick 6:30

educational aspect to it. But now we've moved on, there are many more people who are going into laryngology. And as Chas said, it's not just laryngology, there's so many other things that we're doing in terms of dysphagia and snoring work and so on and so forth, and upper airway work. And and so, as well as that cutting-edge peak of the pyramid, which is what this conference is all about, um, we're also developing lower levels of that pyramid in terms of the basic education, the flow charts in terms of thinking about thinking a way through um cases that you might come across in your practice on a day-to-day basis. And whereas laryngology used to be super specialists in teaching hospitals, now there are laryngologists in most um hospitals that may not be doing the absolutely cutting-edge um ultra-specialist airway work, but will be doing laryngology on a regular basis and need to know this stuff to do then nine to five. So I think in terms of the the wider laryngology community, the uh cutting edge was the sort of the start off of the BLA. And as the um uh the laryngology world has got broader and broader, the cutting edge has become even more important because it's the flagship event where we learn this new stuff and then it gets disseminated through our website and and to everyone who comes to to the conference.

Natalie 7:58

And as you say, you know, it is our flagship event for the BLA. There are so many educational events worldwide competing for people's time. Do you have one element of it that you would say why this is the conference that they shouldn't miss this year?

Nick 8:15

Well, f from my point of view, I I would say um I would just go from uh each cutting edge, I've always made my registrars come to the to the conference. And I said, you're never gonna regret it. And every single time they've come out saying that's the best conference I've ever been to. I've learned so much. And that's perfect. That's all you need to know is when you you pay your money, and look, all these conferences are expensive. And we we desperately try to keep the price down, but when you pay your money, sometimes you can get lost, as Chad says, in some of these conferences, stuff you might have heard before, stuff that's maybe not absolutely relevant to you. But with cutting edge, the talks come so quickly and from world leading experts, and it's bang, bang, bang, bang, that you're you're given so much information that you are rooted to your seat and you listen to these fantastic speakers. Um, and as I said, I have got stuff from every single conference, and my registrars have come away every time saying it's fantastic. So for me, um it's it's the rapidity, it's the um expertise on hand, and um it's those nuggets you go home with that are going to change your practice for the better.

Natalie 9:30

And Chad, just as an extra for you, which element of the program are you most excited about?

Chad 9:37

Um there are there are there are a few sessions that I'm really excited to hear. You know, the session on robotic is gonna be fantastic. We have for the first time so um Laryngel um pacing. We know the trial that's uh undertaken in Europe. Um I don't I don't want to do any spoilers, but we're gonna hear about a completely different approach from across the pond. So that that that's gonna be presented for the first time and highlighted. Um we have a session on uh management of vocal cord scarring and injections, various different injectables from something that is we can we are all started doing it quite a bit of, from PRP to testosterone injection, to growth factors from uh, you know, which only are currently only available in Japan. And

Posters Publishing And Career Growth

Chad 10:25

all of these advances that we haven't seen yet on the ground in the UK, I'm really looking forward to seeing and then take the next step and see what can we bring to the UK as a collective community.

Natalie 10:38

Brilliant. So we've got 60 poster presentations, as I said in the intro. How important is it to give researchers a platform to present their work, Nick?

Nick 10:51

I think uh it is uh it it's it's vital on a number of different levels. Um I think as a uh a junior um uh trainee, surgical trainee who even if you just haven't quite got into it, are you thinking about ENT and you've got involved in a local ENT department uh audits and work and research, or if you're a junior ENT trainee, um there is ENT is is is an academic specialty and getting used to the idea of doing work, having ideas, putting it into practice, auditing your numbers, and then presenting uh that data as a poster, as an oral presentation, and then and ideally then you know getting it published is uh firstly that's fantastic for your own career progression and gets you into that pattern of behaviour and pattern of work that you are going to be doing for the rest of your working life. And then and secondly, it allows you to come to these complexes and network, quite frankly. They've had that awful networking, which I always used to shy away from. But actually all it means is having a chat to people and getting your face out there and known. And when you as you're a trainee and you're coming up, it's actually really important. It's a really nice thing to do. When I've turned round and gone, oh, you're applying for a job, I thought you already had a job. I've seen you at so many conferences, and you and you're coming up through and you're presenting your work, and it's brilliant. So so you you get your your uh your face and your name out there, but it also in in uh instills that pattern of work that you're going to be doing going forward. I often say to my trainees on a slight slight tangent is there are I don't know exactly numbers, but something about 900 ENT consultants in the country, something like that. And you'll see the same 150 or 200 um at every conference doing all the talks and the the the the position papers and organizing stuff. And if you want to be one of those people, turn up. Just turn up and just start today and start or doing an audit with your department and start doing a quip and then hood in the post ranking it's the perfect place to start doing it.

Natalie 13:12

Exactly.

Chad 13:13

And and to add to that, Natalie, because we work, we do we run a multidisciplinary conference where half of the attendees are speech and language therapy colleagues and half uh ENT consultants. So having that ability for everyone not working on their separate silos, everybody to be sitting in the same room, watching the same thing, learning from each other, it will allow us to learn and see what our speech and language therapy colleagues, how they're advancing their field, which is our field, and how we can cross-work together and building that. So it's a because it's a unique space in that in that regard. Um, I I know you go you go to some other conferences elsewhere, and you will see it like purely laryngologists,

Speech Therapy And Multidisciplinary Laryngology

Chad 13:55

everybody speaking is a laryngologist, and there is no one. Well, you go into conferences like ours in the BLA or the full voice in the States, which I absolutely love going to because again, it has the same ethos. It's open space for everyone, everyone is contributing their ideas and allowing people to present, you know, like last last cutting edge, most, you know, was it cutting edge or the BLA conference? All the awards went to speech and language therapists because they were doing fantastic work. You know, it was amazing the work that they showcased in that meeting. And I couldn't be prouder to to be able to be part of that.

Natalie 14:32

Well, moving on from that, actually, uh I completely agree. Um supporting emerging research, uh how does you know us showcasing these research projects, how do you f how do you feel it connects with the BLA's mission?

Nick 14:53

Well, I uh I I mentioned before laryngology is a a smaller specialty and subsequently it means that actually um one, we're growing rapidly, but keeping abreast of those new um uh edges at the frontiers of of what we're doing is really important. Now, no one can do everything, but when your y you know your practice sort of evolves as you go through and you pick up things as you go along, and then suddenly you're getting new ideas from these conferences and from the cutting edge and going, that's excellent. I can use I have that kit, I have the space to be able to do that, and that would be a really easy thing for me to set up and start doing. And that would be a really good thing for my patients. And you take it away. And it's and but but if you're waiting for the papers to come out, you're kind of a little bit behind the curve. And now the way that information is disseminated around the world, we know that it's it's no longer waiting for the hard copy to come through. It's all online, it's all digital, it's all it's quickly accessible, and and cutting edges is right on there.

Chad 16:02

Well, yeah, we we we always said advancing laryngology through multidisciplinary collaboration, you know, like that that was the ethos of the organization. And this is a perfect example of that collaboration between um surgeons, between speech and language therapy, other allied health specialties, other specialties. We have uh people from across the spectrum in terms of medical specialty, but also our industry partners, our colleagues and sponsors who are who support us and we support them. And it is this two-way relation. It's not, you know, we contribute ideas, they they make the kit that will allow us to do the right work and will allow us to demand more, and then we ask for more and they give us more. And having everyone in that one space really advance the field of laryngology.

Nick 16:49

Yeah, they're really keen to be involved. The industry is really keen to be involved, and and they're keen to be involved because they get back from us. As chances, it's a collaborative thing. Like my so one of my specialist interests is vocal fold scarring, right? We're gonna hear about the PRP and other vocal fault injection. Brilliant. But people who deal with scars, we all deal with quite small numbers, and collaboration in between colleagues to maybe collect data and collect bigger numbers is so essential for a smaller specialty. Um so having that collaboration amongst your colleagues, and as Chad says, in between uh specialties or speech therapy and with uh industry is is fantastic. And I think the BLA really does lead on a number of those different fronts.

Natalie 17:36

Now it really does. And I think being leaders in

Hackathon And Added Workshops

Natalie 17:40

conferences leads me to my next section of the podcast where we're really kind of developing the cutting edge with a pre-meet with the hackathon, encouraging young leaders, young engineers, young medics, young laryngologists to come together with industry partners to solve some laryngology questions for prize money and certificates in a dragon's den type of uh format. So that's on the Tuesday, the 22nd of September, and that's a free event that people can apply for to try and um collaborate together with industry partners and mentors on that day to then present to three or four Dragon's Den industry experts with their solutions to some of Laryngology's most uh difficult questions. We've also got the ergonomics workshop, um, which is running alongside cutting edge, uh, which Nick can give us a bit more information about. And then maybe Chad can talk about the DP Medical Lunchtime Symposium that really is gonna add to this year's experience. You know, it's not just a one-dimensional thing. We've got quite a lot of allied things going on on top of uh cutting edge, which is absolutely massively value-added.

Nick 19:09

Absolutely. And I was just saying to Chad before we came on air is that it's just each year, it's getting bigger and bigger, and and people want to get involved and want to do these things and be involved with the cutting edge because it's so good. And in fact, we've got at the hackathon, we've got someone who's uh applied to come from Sydney to come over just for the hackathon because it they it sounds so amazing. So a really uh it's gonna be a fantastic inaugural hackathon. And um again, in combination with our industry partners, and a number of them all in the same room, and they're not vying against each other, they're all in the same place, uh all aiming towards the same thing, which is gonna be uh fantastic. And the ergonomics is something I'm also one of my other interests is through the ergonomics and the biomechanics of the larynx and how the body affects it, and it always ties in uh very nicely with um Raymond Campbell, rhinologist over in Brisbane, who does a lot of work on um uh stress positions whilst operating in rhinology. And and she's got some fascinating data out there. But that's something that we're going to be bringing to laryngology as well. And uh one of our sponsors and partners, Pentax, they've been working on equipment that is ergonomic for the user, and they are they say that they are the first company to be um developing equipment to be used, endoscopic equipment to be ergonomically uh sound for the user, as opposed to just trying to get

Ergonomics And Injury Prevention

Nick 20:40

the best picture um uh out of the equipment, um, which is fascinating because you don't really think about it. And and if you learnt uh or trained any way I did, it was like, well, here's the scope, on you go, carry on, and uh tell me if you can't see something. So you learn pretty quickly, and you learnt on the way. But then again, cutting edge, you get these lectures about here's how I get a really good picture of the of the vocal faults. Come back to the ergonomics, which is um what we're doing in a parallel room to the main event. You can book yourself in for a slot to have your position whilst doing endoscopy um sort of analyzed, looked at. And we're gonna have a physiotherapist there, we've got the equipment, the pentax um reps there as well, and we're going to be seeing if we can do some subtle adjustments. We're not teaching you how to scope or changing the way you're doing it, but just if you um change the way you use uh uh shift your hand or position the equipment behind you, pour a second screen over here, and we can adjust it so that you are much less likely to get any kind of active strain injury. There is musculoskeletal injuries in the medical community extremely high with a tot in uh um medical community and surgeons and ENT surgeons are right at the top of people who get muscular screw injuries due to their job. And the majority of it is because we're doing static positions for long periods of time and using small muscles and overloading. So if we can just do some really simple stuff to adjust that, then maybe and hopefully we can reduce the number of those injuries and will protect you, your shoulders, your uh your upper back, your thromatic spine, your C spine, um, in the years to come.

Natalie 22:30

Brilliant.

Chad 22:31

And on um on the symposium by DP Medical, I I just want to highlight the change of you know a change of approach from our industry partners to what they want from us and what we are asking them to contribute. I think that applies to DP Medical, to Pentax and Slovas, who are all our corporate partners. And um they want to make not to make this as a transactional. The days of I'm gonna give you some money and I'm gonna take and a space is still important because you still need that networking and you get your database and get your potential customers for the future and that's that's essential. But also there is a genuine desire to contribute to the discussion, to contribute to the education, to bring value from because the companies have resources completely different to the resources we have, you know, they look at things in a way differently and sometimes it's great and you never thought about it as a physician. And sometimes it's not and then having that relation to say oh this is a brilliant idea or oh I'm not sure this is a work but let's think about that again. You know this having having that discussion and moving away from transactional relation into true partnership

Industry Partnerships And How To Join

Chad 23:45

to further education and to further the feed of laryngology, the technological side of it, which we rely heavily on it. With everything we do we're like really one of the main things that attracted me to laryngology in the first place that there are so many toys to play with and I still get a get a thrill from when a new scope shows up or a new balloon shows up or something, you know? So and then we can't we can't do we can't do that without that collaboration.

Nick 24:12

Yeah that's chat that's an expensive way of getting your dopamine hit isn't it?

Natalie 24:16

So it's a new scope yes yeah we love gadgets and gizmos you know it's it's one of the entry criteria for a laryngologist um finally in one sentence why should someone who's absolutely not interested in laryngology why should they come to cutting edge 2026?

Nick 24:41

Well I'll start I'm gonna leave the final word to Chad our fantastic organizer and president Lex but I'll I'll start with this and say even if you're not interested in laryngology there are going to be things in this conference that will affect you and will change your practice whether it's ergonomics, industry, whether it's stuff that you don't think is laryngology, like swallowing, like AI, like robotics, which will be directly related to the stuff that you do somehow and it will. And if you are in laryngology it's a it's an unmissable event and we expect to see you there in September.

Chad 25:26

And from my side I always have this running joke between me and Al Marathi for those who do not know Al Marathi he's like one of the gods of laryngology from the state on who organized the best conference and I always say cutting edge is the best conference in the world.

Natalie 25:42

Oh well indeed it is here here so you can buy your tickets the early bird deadline is still there you can buy your tickets online go to the BLA website britishlaryncological dot org I'm sure there'll be some links on there to buy some tickets for cutting edge. So that ends the podcast thank you so much for joining us today and sharing uh your experiences with cutting edge and why it's so important to attend this year 2026 the biggest and best one yet. It runs from the 23rd to the 25th of September 2026 but with the hackathon pre-meet on the 22nd of September try and apply for that um before tickets sell out we were sold out two years ago so it really is something that you know could happen so buy those tickets now. We hope that you've enjoyed listening to the BLA Connections a Clear Voice I've been your host Natalie Watson. Please do tune in this series for more laryngology topics. We would also love to hear from you please feel free to email with any topics you would like us to explore any questions you have along with any other suggested experts you would like to hear from. Also if you'd like to contribute to these podcasts please email inquiries at BritishLaryngological dot org. Our full series can be found in the podcast provider of your choice or via our new website BritishLaryngological dot org you to all our listeners and we hope you found our podcast informative. Please remember to subscribe and do leave a review with your podcast provider. We do appreciate your likes subscribes and reviews