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By Hazel Goedhart, Director of Tinnitus Hub

It was the moment I had been working towards for years; presenting at the Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) conference in Dublin last June. But it did not go as expected…

I had not been nervous beforehand, excited rather. It was the first time that we got a speaking slot at the biggest tinnitus research conference – maybe even one of the first times that any patient organization got to speak at TRI. I was happy at the opportunity to represent the voices of tinnitus sufferers in front of hundreds of tinnitus researchers. I was well prepared. In my day job (for a financial services company) I lead dozens of people and give presentations all the time. I am not only comfortable and confident giving public talks, but I even enjoy it. What could possibly go wrong?
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By Hazel Goedhart, Director of Tinnitus Hub

Imagine being invited to join a group holiday, only to find out you will be travelling to a destination that holds no interest for you. Everything is already decided, and what is worse, it seems that everyone except you was involved in the decision making. Yet, you feel compelled to join because you have no other options.

This is how I often feel when representing tinnitus sufferers in research projects. Over the years, we have built up an extensive network in research. We were invited as ‘partners’ or ‘advisors’ to various projects, but always after the research agenda, budget, and plans had been set in stone. It never felt like an equal partnership.

COVID-19 did not help. With in-person meetings suspended, we had fewer options for engaging with the research community. But that all changed last week when I attended two tinnitus research events in Germany. I packed my suitcase, excited to finally be representing our wonderful community again!
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By Hazel Goedhart

This was my second time at a TIN-ACT meeting. [Well, really the third time, but I missed most of the last meeting in Berlin because my mom fell sick.] It was nice meeting the PhD students, their supervisors and the TIN-ACT managers again, this time in the UK at the Hearing Sciences section of Nottingham University.
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I already shared with you my general impressions of the tinnitus research field in our previous blog post. We had promised to follow up with a bit more detail on what actually went on at the Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) 2019 conference in Taipei, so here we go!

Since I spent most of my time conducting video interviews (they are coming soon, I promise!), I could hardly attend any of the talks. Here at Tinnitus Hub we’re all volunteers (who suffer from tinnitus ourselves) and we operate on a negligible budget. This meant I was alone at the conference, running around and trying to do a hundred things at once. It still stresses me out just thinking about it, haha.

And there were so many talks! The program entailed six keynote speeches, and 20 symposia – each of the latter including up to five different speakers.
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Are you curious about what’s really going on in the world of tinnitus research? Here at Tinnitus Hub it’s part of our mission to keep you informed. We’re kicking off a big project this year, publishing a series of short video interviews with tinnitus researchers. But I’m getting ahead of myself… First, let me tell you a little bit about the Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) annual conference that I recently attended.
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