Chad Ruffin, MD

Dr. Chad Ruffin is an Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) surgeon and cochlear implant surgeon in Seattle, Washington. He treats adults and children with hearing loss, ear disease, dizziness, sinus and allergy problems, throat and voice disorders, and sleep-disordered breathing.

Lived experience

Dr. Ruffin was born with severe hearing loss and uses cochlear implants himself. He is one of very few surgeons in the United States who both implants cochlear implants and lives with them. That experience shapes how he counsels patients and families about hearing technology, communication, and school and workplace access.

Training and research

He completed a research fellowship on how cochlear implants encode sound in the auditory nerve (2007), earned his medical degree in 2009, and completed otolaryngology surgical training and a research fellowship on how the brain changes with hearing loss (2010–2018), followed by advanced training in ear surgery and cochlear implant research as a faculty physician. He has received research funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, and the National Institutes of Health, holds a patent on cochlear implant technology, and has published in peer-reviewed journals. His advocacy was recognized by Science.

Practice

From 2018 he practiced as a partner in one of the largest surgical groups in the United States. Since 2022 he has practiced in Seattle in partnership with the Hearing, Speech & Deaf Center (HSDC), one of the city's oldest nonprofits serving deaf and hard-of-hearing people, where he also leads research and advocacy work.

Advocacy and public work

Dr. Ruffin's work has appeared in Forbes, the Washington Post, Hearing Tracker, the National Association of the Deaf, and the Hearing Loss Association of America. He has spoken at the American Academy of Achievement and the Exponential Medicine conference, collaborates on academic research with Indiana University and the University of Washington, co-founded the technology and advocacy startup 3Cairns, and consults for Regeneron on gene therapy for hearing loss.

Editorial note

Every condition, procedure, test, and medication page signed by Dr. Ruffin is written or reviewed by him. Pages are checked against current otolaryngology references and updated when the evidence or his clinical practice changes.