Before the year 1922 the specialty of ENT (Otorhinolaryngology) did not exist even as a subsection in this institution. Major W Selby the first professor of surgery was interested in this specialty and devoted some of his time to ENT cases. In 1922 Dr P C Kacker was appointed honorary ENT surgeon and held charge of this section till 1929 when Dr R N Kacker took over.
From 1934 this sub section was under the immediate charge of Dr Rehman and Dr R N Misra, both working as honorary consultants. In September 1947, Dr R N Misra was appointed as the first lecturer in ENT. The diploma in laryngology and Otology (DLO) course was started in 1949. In 1951 this section became a separate department with Dr R N Misra as the first head of department. Subsequently in 1954 MS ENT course was started. The department has a glorious record of producing world renowned ENT Teachers and surgeons who have occupied important post such as Director All India Institute Of Medical Sciences ,New Delhi, Principal Allahabad Medical College and Director General of Armed Forces Medical Services apart from heads of ENT Departments in almost all the Provinces of the Country . Many of ex- students are occupying high positions abroad. There have been more than 280 successful MS post graduate and more than 100. Diplomas from the department many being the first generation of ENT surgeons in their states and even in the country. The department has a bed strength of 50 and caters to ENT ailments especially in the fields of hearing disabilities, speech disorders among children and head and neck cancers and offers training to post graduates in various aspects of Otolaryngology ,Otoneurology Head and Neck Oncology, Nasal and Sinus Endoscopy and Pediatric endoscopy. Pioneering work has been done in Nasopharyngeal Angiofibroma. This departments runs very busy out patient services the annual OPD attendance being around 45000. The indoor admission number about 1200 per year. The major operation done annually is 1050 and minor about 7545.
There are 5 seats annually for the MS course.
The department also organized 4 national conferences 3of Association of Otolaryngologist of India in 1951, 1994 and 2006 and the Annual Conference of Neurotological and Equilibriometric society of India in1983, besides various state level conferences. Two live surgical workshop on cochlear implant were held in 2002, 2003 two orations are organized
Annually in memory of 2 retired teachers Prof R N Misra and Prof M L Bhatia. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the department a North Zone conference of Association of otolaryngologists of India was held 2006. To coincide with the birth centenary of Dr R N Misra the department also organized the 58th All India conference of Association of otolaryngologists of India and 5th National conference of the Foundation of Head and Neck Oncology in January 2006. The pre conference CME was held in honor of Dr R N Misra and Dr M L Bhatia .The department also organised the first ever live surgical workshop on head and neck oncology which was conducted by faculty from Tata Memorial Hospital (Mumbai) AIIMS (New Delhi) Cochin, Guwahati and Bangalore under the auspices of head and neck oncology in India in April 2004. The department has conducted temporal bone dissection and FESS workshops as well as otology workshop at three occasions. The Diploma course in hearing language and speech from Mysore has been started since 2008 and PhD programme of the university is on going in the department. Currently the department is active in performing cochlear implantation and the annual training programme CME for ENT surgeons of provincial medical services is being done on regular basis.