We thought it was time that we told you a little more about our team of eminent medical advisers, who support the BTA with their up-to-date knowledge and experience of tinnitus. In this article Lucy Handscomb, a former Chair of the BTA’s Professional Advisers' Committee (PAC), tells us more about the team and what they do.

Finding good information about tinnitus can be a tricky business. A search on the internet will throw up all kinds of horror stories and dodgy remedies. While some web pages are very obviously untrustworthy, it can be difficult to sort the genuine from the misleading. One of the BTA’s roles is to be a good information provider, and this is where the Professional Advisers Committee (PAC) comes in.

In most issues of Quiet  and throughout this website you will find mentions of the PAC. 

The committee only actually meets once a year, at the exciting venue of the new Ear Institute in London - a place entirely dedicated to auditory research. The bulk of our work is carried out via email, but given the small size of the professional tinnitus community, most of us see each other at various meetings and training events through the year, and ideas about what we’re doing frequently get bounced around over coffee.

There are 10 members of the committee, and between us we represent the fields of medicine, scientific research, psychology and audiology. Most of us see tinnitus patients on a very regular basis, and all of us are actively involved in tinnitus research in one way or another.

Our most visible role is to provide responses to BTA members’ questions, either through Quiet or via the BTA office, who deal with many questions about tinnitus by phone, letter and email every week. We’re not able to offer opinions about individual cases (e.g. “was my tinnitus caused by noise?”), because it would be totally unethical for us to do this without seeing the person as a patient. There is a big risk of getting it wrong when working with incomplete information, which is why “go and see your doctor” is the advice you will often get. What we can do is share our knowledge of factors which affect tinnitus with you (e.g. tell you about studies which show links between tinnitus and noise exposure) let you know whether there is any scientific evidence to back up suggestions for managing tinnitus that you have come across, answer your general queries and help you access more detailed information.

Most of the information leaflets supplied by BTA were written by current or former members of the PAC, and one of our tasks is to keep leaflets up-to-date and in line with current knowledge. We write leaflets on new topics if there seems to be a demand, and welcome suggestions from members about subjects you would like to see covered.

Most members of the committee are quite well connected, have links to people who are doing tinnitus research abroad and are lucky enough sometimes to attend international conferences. We try to keep BTA up-to-date with what is happening overseas, to ensure that a wide range of information is always available to members.

When people have ideas for tinnitus research projects in the UK, they might well apply to BTA for funding. Detailed proposals have to be submitted, and it is the PAC’s role to read and discuss these with each other, and make decisions about which projects are worthwhile. This ensures that BTA funds are being directed towards the projects which are most likely to improve our understanding of tinnitus and make a difference to the lives of people who have it. If a completed study is thought to be particularly impressive, it may be nominated by the PAC members for the Jack and Marie Shapiro Prize, which recognises important contributions to UK based tinnitus research.

Our final role is to vet the content of Quiet, to make sure the information in it is as accurate as it can be, and to contribute to it. So as you carry on reading, rest assured that, unlike some of the crazy stuff out there, the content of this magazine won’t lead you up the garden path.

Lucy Handscomb, former Chair of the PAC. A version of this article originally appeared in Quiet, Spring 2007