John J. Shea, Jr.

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This article is for the ear surgeon. For other people named John Shea, see John Shea (disambiguation).

John J. Shea, Jr., M.D. was born in 1924 and is the son of Ear, Nose and Throat specialist John J. Shea, Sr., M.D. (1889-1952). Dr. Shea, Jr. attended Christian Brothers High School in Memphis, Tennessee. He then went to the University of Notre Dame, where he graduated magna cum laude, and Harvard Medical School, where he graduated with honors in 1947. He did his residency at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston and served in the United States Navy Medical Corps during the Korean War.

Dr. Shea became interested in the treatment of hearing loss and went to Los Angeles to study with Dr. Howard House in 1953 and to Vienna, Austria in 1954 to study at the University of Vienna. He performed the first successful stapedectomy in May, 1956. The patient was a 54 year-old housewife who could no longer hear even with a hearing aid. Dr. Shea removed the stapes, covered the oval window opening with a vein graft removed from the back of the patient's hand, and inserted a prosthesis to replace the diseased stapes bone. The patient’s hearing was restored and she heard well for the rest of her life. Dr. Shea has performed nearly 40,000 stapedectomies during his career with recovery of hearing in more than 90%. His technique with very little modification is now used all over the world.

Dr. Shea has pioneered numerous techniques in the treatment of hearing loss and dizziness, developed many instruments and prostheses to restore hearing, and worked to advance the knowledge and understanding of the treatment of ear disease. He is a Clinical Professor in the Ear, Nose and Throat Departments of the University of Tennessee, the University of Mississippi, the University of North Carolina and Tulane University. He is a member of more than fifty scientific societies and has received honorary doctorates from Christian Brothers University and Rhodes College in Memphis and honorary fellowships from the Australian and English Royal College of Surgeons.

He is married to the former Lynda Lee Mead, Miss America, 1960.