https://www.paulekwak.com/home daily 1.0 2021-11-15 https://www.paulekwak.com/media daily 0.75 2021-11-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1636472955986-I84TIF7SV4Q0IPCWDYNQ/Adele.jpg Media - On shaming vocal performers In this invited commentary from 2017, on Jenna Simeonov’s fabulous blog, Schmopera, - Dr. Kwak writes about the backlash against Adele after she canceled the end of her worldwide tour in the face of exhaustion - and what this toxicity says about the culture of repression and shame that feeds the fear and anxiety that often keeps vocalists from seeking the care they deserve. https://www.paulekwak.com/about daily 0.75 2021-11-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1629056967050-U65F60V8R8BM05ZVBKHR/PaulKwak_0188.jpg About - Paul E. Kwak, MD, MM, MSc, FACS Paul E. Kwak is a laryngologist and laryngeal surgeon at the NYU Voice Center, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, specializing in care of the professional voice and phonomicrosurgical resection of benign vocal fold lesions. He treats patients with vocal cord cancer, vocal cord paralysis, and laryngeal papilloma, and is experienced in surgical techniques for laryngeal microsurgery. Dr. Kwak completed his clinical fellowship in laryngeal surgery with Dr. Steven Zeitels at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and his residency in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also a graduate of The Juilliard School, where he earned a master’s degree in Collaborative Piano with Margo Garrett, studying vocal accompanying and opera coaching. In 2003, Kwak graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where he studied the history of medicine and medical ethics and wrote an honors thesis on the history of trust in the physician-patient relationship. Kwak spent a year abroad at Oxford University, on fellowship from Harvard, where he earned a master’s degree in Comparative Social Policy, writing an honors dissertation on patients’ rights legislation in the United States and in the United Kingdom. In February 2006, Kwak was awarded the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and in May 2006, the Helen Fay Prize for Outstanding Pianist at Juilliard. He is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where he was named the 2010 Outstanding Graduating Medical Student. Dr. Kwak’s clinical and research interests center on the care of the professional voice, and his most recent publications examine physiologic and acoustic effects of opera performance, in ongoing collaborations with The Juilliard School, The Metropolitan Opera, and the Houston Grand Opera. Additionally, his work focuses on phonomicrosurgical approaches to benign subepithelial vocal fold pathology, paralytic dysphonia, and recurrent respiratory papillomatosis. https://www.paulekwak.com/kwaktalks daily 0.75 2021-12-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1636469731904-BXP1JMSV6P0MFLBAHBHK/KwakTalksLogo.jpg KwakTalks https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1636470176374-UMNHTKMOQ2CAKRONJG3W/KwakTalksLogo.jpg KwakTalks - KwakTalks: How did we get here, and why are we here? This first episode is my opportunity to tell you why I’m here, and why I think you might be here, and why we might benefit from being here together. This podcast is designed to empower vocal athletes with knowledge, through conversations with some of my most brilliant colleagues who are experts in topics on vocal health. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1636470255056-RPN9UBSZC4NO7K7A4VKT/17_PaulKwak_0473.jpg KwakTalks - What is a healthy voice, and why does education matter? Episode 2 lays out what I consider some core, essential principles in the way I think about the voice and vocal health, because they animate and underpin all of the following discussions. There are 2 basic questions: What is the voice, and specifically, what is a healthy voice? Why does education in vocal health matter? Perhaps the answers seem obvious to some of you, but in discussing how we do answer those questions, we start to get to the heart of the matter - giving vocalists knowledge is in fact the core of keeping them healthy. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1636470398465-BPMIBUEQKYEK7U4C6Z5W/PaulKwak_0118+%281%29.jpg KwakTalks The Vocal Squad The care of any great athlete involves a great, integrated team - the squad -and that is just as true for vocal athletes. In this episode, I discuss who you should have on your vocal squad and why, and relatedly, when and why you might consider seeing an ENT, even before a problem arises. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1637681101135-Z5U4JHI7LJ9V8PQ4JT3V/aaron-m-johnson-headshot.jpg KwakTalks - Getting the Voice Back in Shape after a Global Pandemic Dr. Aaron Johnson is my colleague at the NYU Voice Center; he is a PhD speech-language pathologist and a voice scientist. He studies the relationship of exercise physiology to the voice, and the mechanics and athletics of the human voice. We discuss how to get back in shape vocally after a long time off, at this unique time in our history. As vocal performers start to return to training, rehearsals, and performance after so much time off, it can be difficult to know where to start and how to begin. We discuss the interplay of anatomy and function in a busy performing voice, and how to think about mobilizing and taking care of both of those, in our re-entry into live performance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1638286817139-YRJO2QVS8V55W2RLJVXD/Gherson.png KwakTalks - Voice Therapy: Physical Therapy for Vocal Athletes Shirley Gherson is a clinical speech-language pathologist at the NYU Voice Center; Shirley and I see voice patients together in our clinic, and Shirley spends most of her week doing voice therapy with patients with all manner of voice issues. She is one of the greatest voice therapists I know. This may be one of my favorite episodes, because it turned into a more comprehensive distillation of the way that I think about the voice, busy vocal performers, and how we take care of them. Substantively, the episode is about voice therapy – what it is, why we do it, what it accomplishes – but because Shirley is such a brilliant, experienced, passionate clinician – it became a meditation on vocal health, and good, sustainable care of a busy performing voice, and a busy performer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1638981479482-HLKDSADONEEDU3GEIX9S/ryan-c-branski-thumb.jpg KwakTalks - Vocal Injury: What Does it Mean? Dr. Ryan Branski is a speech-language pathologist, and the Howard A. Rusk Associate Professor of Rehabilitation Research at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. In addition to his decade of experience taking care of injured singers in the clinic, he holds multiple major grants from the National Institutes of Health, to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie vocal injury and wound healing. Therefore, he has a unique perspective from both clinical and basic science perspectives about what vocal injury is. In this episode, we discuss the many meanings of “vocal injury;” how this can contribute to mythology and fear, but also how understanding vocal injury in terms that are rooted in science and medicine can help change our culture to support and affirm the athletic physiology of what vocal performers do. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1640022457547-87VBGRZBBNBVJTKUSZF8/Abe+Khan+2.png KwakTalks - Reflux Dr. Abraham Khan joins us to discuss reflux and the voice. Dr. Khan is the director of NYU Langone Health’s Center for Esophageal Health, and a foremost expert on the topic of gastroesophageal reflux. Reflux has become something much larger than itself in our collective consciousness, such that it can be difficult to know what is true and what is myth, and how to navigate all the information. In this episode, we discuss what reflux is, how we define it, how we test for it, how GERD relates to laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR), diet and reflux, and how reflux might affect the voice. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60ff60bc346a3a04ab5535b3/1640714371107-TJXIQL6DICQIO3XGFMBA/nathanael-horne-square.jpg KwakTalks - Allergies and the Voice Dr. Nathanael Horne is an allergist and the clinical director of outpatient allergy at NYU Langone Health. Questions about allergies are frequently asked, as allergies can dramatically affect the face, nose, and throat, and therefore have an impact on the voice. Dr. Horne joins me for this information-rich episode; we talk about seasonal versus perennial allergies; allergy testing, how it’s done and what it means; and discuss medications that are commonly used to treat allergies. https://www.paulekwak.com/book-a-class daily 0.75 2025-05-09