Chesapeake Hearing Center’s Story
Written by our late founder, Dr. Charles Larry Hutto, Au.D., F-AAA
My wife, Kate, and I became foster parents back in 1971 to a deaf child who had been misdiagnosed with severe mental disabilities and abandoned to an unfortunate institutional life with basically no educational intervention and no family. He had is eleventh birthday the first week he joined our family. We saw a life devastated by these mistakes and a lack of appropriate care and simple love.
In a desire to understand better and make a difference, we became involved in the hearing impaired community. We got to know many folks with varying degrees of hearing impairment on a personal basis. We listened to their frustrations, and began to see the need for professional services out in the community. Folks could buy hearing aids on the street corner, but professionally trained professional providers with advanced degrees were only found at a few major hospitals.
The experience changed our lives, and I decided to pursue graduate study in hearing loss and a professional degree in a clinical field specifically designed to help people with hearing impairments, Audiology.
Then, after my training at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and my licensure as an audiologist, Kate and I founded the first private practice Audiology service in Maryland in 1975.
With empathy, professional competence, care, and respect for the needs of those with hearing loss, we have focused consistently on the task of empowering folks with this frustrating condition. The reward of seeing this happen on a day-to-day basis is something we cherish. This culture of care begins with your phone call, continues with your in-office experience with support staff, and throughout your professional evaluation, treatment and follow-up process for as long as you need us. We consider you a “Patient for Life” rather than a momentary encounter.
In this manner we want to help you accomplish your goals of better hearing, whatever that means to you. That was true in 1975 and remains true today. I personally expect this value to be present in every single experience our patients have at Chesapeake Hearing Centers.
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