After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in audio engineering from the State University of New York (SUNY) Purchase College, Frank Wartinger, AuD ‘11, was happy to start his career in the music industry.
A musician himself, he had damaged his own ears with loud, live music and had developed tinnitus. While in high school, Dr. Wartinger had custom earplugs made to help, but by the time he got to college he was not able to find an audiologist who worked with musicians.
“That was really the impetus to start doing my own research and eventually go to grad school to become the audiologist that I couldn’t find,” said Dr. Wartinger. “Instead of helping musicians make records (as an audio engineer), I wanted to help them keep making records and keep their ears healthy.”
He looked at a lot of different audiology graduate programs, but many of them required pre-requisites in the traditional communication disorders or speech sciences, a background he didn’t have with his audio engineering degree.
“Frankly, a lot of those programs when I called them, they had this ‘Yea, you’re not going to make it in this program’ attitude,” said Dr. Wartinger.
And, then he found the audiology program at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry School of Audiology.
“It was a very different attitude. The clinical director at the time, Tricia Dabrowski, AuD ‘07, saw my atypical educational background as a positive instead of a liability. And, I felt very welcomed,” said Wartinger.
During his visit to the school, Dr. Wartinger would meet the program’s founder, George S. Osborne. He recalled Dr. Osborne also offered a warm and welcoming feeling.
“I remember shaking his hand and him saying, ‘You’re going to love it here.’ And, then he told me that he was a dentist, and he said, ‘You don’t need a typical background to become an audiologist. The point is to have a passion for it,’” said Dr; Wartinger.
Although Dr. Osborne would unexpectedly pass between the time of Dr. Wartinger’s school visit and the time he actually started classes that first year, Dr. Osborne’s presence was always there.
“It’s sad to lose the visionary behind something that’s atypical because then everybody is left trying to decide how to keep honoring those visionary parts,” he said.
In what would eventually be named the Osborne College of Audiology (OCA) to help keep that vision alive and moving forward, the program continued to offer the one of the best audiology training programs in the country. Dr. Wartinger believes that training included, but was not limited to, clinical experience, a professional attitude and motivating students to find what they really wanted to do clinically and then seek out externships in those areas.
That motivation helped land Dr. Wartinger at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he was able to learn from Brian Fligor, PhD, PASC, also a music audiologist. Dr. Fligor, who is an adjunct instructor at OCA, is president and staff audiologist at Tobias & Battite Hearing Wellness in Boston. He is founder and past chair of the National Hearing Conservation Association task force on Music-Induced Hearing Disorders, teaching “Managing the Musician’s Ear.” He examines audio professionals routinely for all hearing wellness services.
After an externship and then10 years full-time at the Boston Children’s Hospital, Dr. Wartinger spent two-and-a-half years at the Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Florida and eight years at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). He now has his own private practice, Earmark Hearing Conservation, remotely out of Philadelphia, and is one of only a handful of full-time music audiologists in the country.
In addition to also being an adjunct for his alma mater, Osborne Audiology, he teaches virtual Council for Accreditation in Occupational Hearing Conservation (CAOHC) classes to nurses and doctors.
“There are people whose job is music — engineers, performers, dancers, venue staff — or people who are big into music. Maybe they have a garage band or they play drums every night and they need to protect themselves,” said Dr. Wartinger. “What I’m doing with them is typical audiology — hearing tests and counseling and guiding them to the right next steps — and also in-ear monitor fitting, hearing protection, custom ear plugs, and spending a lot of time counseling and training on hearing loss prevention.”
A musician himself — he plays guitar and keyboards — Dr. Wartinger is still able to be in some bands, one a Beatles cover band that does benefits and has raised tens of thousands of dollars over the years for CHOP, and a couple of indie rock bands with some friends. During his own music career, he has also served as a record producer, front of house mixing engineer and as the sound tech for bands on tour.
“Musicians are some of the most interesting, introspective and thoughtful people and I find them very special. And, whenever I get a chance to work with them, I love it,” said Dr. Wartinger. “I come at it as how can I support them continuing to do exactly what they’re doing, because that works. I’m not going to change it.”
As his career moves forward, Dr. Wartinger hopes to continue his virtual teaching and to eventually have a music audiology physical practice that is specifically designed for the comfort and functional use of musicians.
“That feeling of being comfortable and having everything you need at hand. It will be a creative space, not a clinical space,” he said. “Having a setting where musicians are comfortable trying out their hearing protection and in-ear monitors in a more conducive space for that. That was kind of my goal when I started grad school and I’m most of the way there, which makes me feel really proud.”
Dr. Wartinger also has a podcast called Talking Ears where he speaks with music creators about their ears, sound and hearing, a sound-positive space where loudness is celebrated as one of the ways sound can be created and experienced.
It was that patient-centered care he was taught at Osborne Audiology that has served Dr Wartinger well throughout his career.
“There was a lot of conversation, especially in clinical education at the Pennsylvania Ear Institute (PEI) about the concept that everything is directed at the patient and that is the goal,” he said. “Another big takeaway for me was to include the loved ones, the person who came with the patient. They shouldn’t wait in the waiting room, they should come back for the conversation. We’re talking about quality of life and improving communication, so we need to have that kind of focus on relationships and the human element.”
