AAO-HNSF 2026 Annual Meeting Guest Lectureships

John Conley, MD Lecture on Medical Ethics

Saturday, October 17
8:00 – 9:00 am (PT) (presented during the Opening Ceremony)
Trust at the Crossroads: Medical Ethics in an Age of Uncertainty

Lecturer:
Bobby Mukkamala, MDBobby Mukkamala, MD, is the President of the American Medical Association (AMA) and a board-certified otolaryngologist–head and neck surgeon in private practice in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. A passionate advocate for public health, Dr. Mukkamala is deeply committed to creating a more sustainable health system that better supports physicians and more effectively serves the needs of people and communities.

Dr. Mukkamala joined the AMA's Board of Trustees in 2017 and has been active in organized medicine since residency. He is a past Michigan representative to the AMA Young Physicians Section and a past recipient of the AMA Foundation’s “Excellence in Medicine” Leadership Award.

After completing his residency at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, he returned to Flint to establish a private practice dedicated to addressing the community's urgent health needs, where he now shares an office with his wife, Nita Kulkarni, MD, an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Dr. Mukkamala previously chaired the Community Foundation of Greater Flint (CFGF), guiding its focus on reducing the effects of lead exposure in children. He continues to serve on the CFGF committee board as it advances high-quality early education opportunities for children. He also co-chairs efforts of the Crim Fitness Foundation to incorporate mindfulness into community health initiatives and serves on the board of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, which works globally to build a just, equitable, and sustainable society.

H. Bryan Neel III, MD, PhD Distinguished Research Lecture

Sunday, October 18
11:00 am – 12:00 pm (PT)
Thoughts on the Role of Research for the Practicing Otolaryngologist

Lecturer:
Albert H. Park, MDAlbert H. Park, MD, is the former Chief of Pediatric Otolaryngology at the University of Utah and at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He is the Director of the multidisciplinary hearing center that he and John C. Carey, MD, MPH, established in 2004. 

Dr. Park serves as Co-Principal Investigator on a National Institutes of Health-funded project assessing the role of resident tissue macrophages in cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and cochlear development. He served on the Board of Directors for the National CMV Foundation and has worked with the National Institutes on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Genentech, and approximately 30 academic institutions to introduce hearing-targeted early CMV testing to more than one hundred birth hospitals across the United States.

Dr. Park established a CMV Working Group that brought together experts in pediatric neonatology, infectious disease, genetics, otolaryngology, audiology, healthcare economics, biostatistics, and neurology. These collaborative efforts produced a statewide expanded targeted early CMV screening program for newborns, universal CMV screening in the NICU, a multidisciplinary congenital cytomegalovirus (cCMV) clinic, and the first clinically validated dry blood spot and saliva polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for cCMV detection.

Working alongside Representative Ronda Rudd Menlove, Dr. Park helped introduce legislation in the Utah legislature to increase awareness of cCMV infection and mandate early testing for newborns who fail their hearing screen. In July 2013, Utah became the first state to implement a hearing-targeted CMV screening program. Dr. Park has received the Ruben Scientific Achievement Award from SENTAC and the American Academy of Pediatrics Advocacy Award.

Eugene N. Myers, MD International Lecture on Head and Neck Cancer

Monday, October 19
11:00 am – 12:00 pm
What We Don't Know about Jaw Reconstruction, but Probably Should: Function, Quality of Life, and Biomechanics

Lecturer:
Professor Jonathan Clark, MBBS, BSc(Med), MBiostat, FRACS, AMProfessor Jonathan Clark, MBBS, BSc(Med), MBiostat, FRACS, AM, is the Director of Head and Neck Cancer Research at Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, Director of Translational Research and Deputy Chair at the Royal Prince Alfred Institute of Academic Surgery, the Inaugural Walker Family Foundation Chair and Conjoint Professor in Head and Neck Cancer Reconstructive Surgery at the University of Sydney, and Director of the National Health and Medical Research Council Centre of Research Excellence for Applied Innovations in Oral Cancer.

Professor Clark is the founder and inaugural Chair of Head and Neck Cancer Australia, home to the world's most comprehensive online education resource for patients living with head and neck cancer.

In recognition of his outstanding contributions to medicine and research, Professor Clark has been appointed a Member of the Order of Australia and an Honorary Member of the Australian Society of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery.