Profile: Ted Glattke

Clinic days aren't typical days for University of Arizona professor and audiologist, Ted Glattke.

If you need proof, just examine his workspace. Hot, cramped and crowded.
On the desks, high tech audio testing lies alongside stuffed animals and colorful building blocks. Off in the corner, a box lights up and a mechanical ladybug leaps up and down, drawing the attention of a little girl seated nearby.

Once a month, St. Andrew's Episcopal Church is converted by volunteers into a fully functioning medical clinic, where experts offer their services to underprivileged Mexican children. Driven or bused across the border with their families, the children suffer from any number of physical and neurological handicaps and it is often up to the medical professionals to diagnose them on site.

“My particular role in this is to identify the children with hearing loss, try to figure out how much loss they have and whether or not they could be helped by the use of hearing aides,” Glattke said.

Highly revered in his field, Glattke taught at Stanford University for several years, and was part of the team that pioneered the cochlear “bionic ear” implant. After accepting a teaching/research position at the UA, he made the acquaintance of audiologist Janis Gasch, who recruited him to the clinic.

Now, the first Thursday of every month, Glattke and some of his student volunteers make the early morning drive from Tucson to Nogales, Ariz., so they can set up before the first patients begin to arrive around 9 a.m.

They work primarily in a specialized tractor trailer, donated by the Saratoga Club and outfitted with two soundproof testing booths so that multiple patients can be diagnosed at once.

“In early 2003, that trailer was sitting, gathering rust down in Illinois and by the fall, it was set up in Nogales being put to good use,” he said.

Despite the cramped quarters, packed tight with patients and families, the trailer is one of the clinic's most valuable resources for diagnosing hearing problems.

“If we determine that a particular patient can be helped, then we’ll send them over to another room with Janis Gasch where they will be fitted with hearing aides,” he said. “If we catch them early enough, we can teach them how to speak and use auditory input. If not, we can get them into classes to learn sign language.”

Thanks to donations and funds from individuals as well as major hearing care providers, Gasch and Glattke are able to acquire the hearing aid units at heavily reduced prices, around a hundred dollars a unit. Yet, the remaining costs for products and treatment must either be absorbed by Gasch or the clinic itself.

“When we say we put 70 hearing aides on children, 7,000 real dollars have gone out the door, so it’s a challenge to continue to find resources for purchasing them,” he said.

With a limited amount of time, resources, and language barriers, the job is full of difficulties.

“Even if there were a thousand of us, we still couldn’t meet the need,” Glattke said, citing the lack of proper auditory care available on the other side of the border. “There’s no safety net of care in Mexico and hearing really isn’t a top priority there, even among those who can get care.”

Yet, the experience is always a rewarding one.

“It’s the model of giving back to the community,” he said. “Everyone who has gone down there has reported that their lives have been changed by the experience.” In the future, Glattke hopes to recruit an ear surgeon, so they can treat ear disease and other medical issues that impair diagnosis on site.

“We need all kinds of people to volunteer their services, especially if they're bilingual, we send them in the trenches and put them to work,” he laughed.

“When it’s all said and done, I can guarantee you a volunteer will sleep better that night than any other night of the lives.”