Maury Regional Medical Group began the Otolaryngology service line in 2022 with Dr. Frances Mei Hardin. Our ENT team consists of 1 ENT, 1 Audiologist, 2 Nurses, full front and back-office support, and a clinic manager. Our clinic has 6 exam rooms and 1 procedure room so when we have 2 providers, they will be able to rotate through 3 exam rooms. All the scopes and equipment are Olympus and are less than 2-years old.
Our clinic is conveniently attached to the hospital for easy OR access. Dr. Hardin performs a full scope of ENT clinic and surgery, with the exception of high acuity Otology and Neuro Otology. Dr. Hardin is currently seeing an average of 18 patients per day in the clinic and with the 20-30 referrals daily we are scheduling new patients for 2 months out. With Dr. Hardin staying away from the complicated surgical Otology, these cases are currently going to Vanderbilt in Nashville. Keeping these surgeries in Maury County would also help an incoming ENT be as busy as they want to be. We could have a new provider be full from day one, and have a practice that is 75% ear surgery, if someone was passionate about it.
Dr. Hardin’s practice is going to be a good mix of everything like thyroid, anti-allergy, tonsils, a lot of medical ears, sinus surgery, endocrine surgery, head & neck cancer and airways. Over the last year or so, they have had a large increase in throat cancer, but overall, it’s a broad-spectrum position.
Dr. Hardin typically spends 4 days in the clinic and half day in the OR as her practice is building. Since they have not had the service line, a lot of the referral base is still getting used to referring patients internally. A lot of the referrals are for Medical Management cases, but the team is starting to get more operative referrals and expects that to continue to grow.
Her surgeries usually start at 7-8am and go until she is finished but the OR team is very flexible with the times and there should be no issue getting block time on the schedule.