| Ellis Douek | |
| Birth Date: | 25 April 1934 |
| Birth Place: | Cairo, Egypt |
| Death Place: | London, England |
| Nationality: | British |
| Occupation: | surgeon and cochlear implant pioneer |
| Relatives: | Claudia Roden (sister) |
Ellis Douek (25 April 1934 – 20 May 2024) was a British surgeon and cochlear implant pioneer.
Douek was born in Cairo, Egypt on 25 April 1934, the son of Cesar Elie Douek and his wife Nelly Sassoon.[1] [2] [3] His parents were both from Syrian-Jewish merchant families, and he grew up in Zamalek, Cairo, with his sister Claudia, and brother Zaki.[4] [2]
Douek died on 20 May 2024, at the age of 90.[5]
"During the 1970s, a group in the United Kingdom, headed by Ellis Douek, began experimenting with an extracochlear electrode that was stationed on the promontory near the round window ... this device created a great deal of interest because it was judge to be the more conservative, less invasive, approach."[7]
"In Britain ... [I]t all started in the early 1970s, soon after Ellis Douek's appointment to a senior ear, nose and throat post at London’s Guy's Hospital. The Department of Health, prompted by a deafened Member of Parliament active on behalf of the disabled (Jack Ashley, now Lord Ashley), suggested to Douek that his speciality was doing far too little on sensorineural deafness, and why didn't he do something in that area?"[8]
Douek is the author of the autobiography A Middle Eastern Affair (2004), and the medical memoir To Hear Again, To Sing Again (2022).[9]