You can’t help but be moved when UNLV Health’s Jennifer Cornejo, a senior audiologist and faculty lecturer in the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine department of otolaryngology, explains why she finds fulfillment in her profession, which often involves working with ear, nose, and throat physicians who surgically implant devices that she then programs and activates. 

I remember activating one of my first bone-anchored hearing devices in the early 2000s on a teenager that had been born with a conductive hearing loss because her ears didn’t form properly. I saw her for the first follow-up on the device that used bone vibration to send sound into her inner ear. She excitedly told me about going to the McDonald’s with her new hearing device and realizing for the first time that a straw makes a squeaking sound when you move it up and down in a lid. She also heard birds outside the kitchen window for the first time. It stuck with me because it was a moment where I realized some of us take sound for granted, even the most mundane.

Because I specialize in testing for newborns and infants, I am often the audiologist that activates their first set of hearing aids when a hearing loss has been identified. Watching a baby’s face when the hearing aids are first turned on is an emotional experience for both the family and myself. It doesn’t always result in the baby looking up and smiling or laughing as they have no idea what sound is and it can often be scary. That means that most young children cry when they hear for the first time. It’s also very reassuring when a baby babbles a lot when the hearing aids are on and then stops when the hearing aids are off. That’s how you know that their little brains are beginning to understand what sound is and what it results in.

I have sat with adults and grown men as they cried after being able to hear with their cochlear implant for the first time. Most of us are familiar with losing hearing as part of the aging process. For some, this can begin to happen and then the hearing gets so bad that even the most expensive and powerful hearing aids can’t help. That is when we evaluate them for a cochlear implant that uses electrical impulses to stimulate the inner ear in response to sounds. This is an artificial way to hear sound and then over time the brain begins to understand it as natural hearing. For those adults that struggle for many years, get frustrated, and even become withdrawn and isolated, when they can suddenly hear they are overcome with relief and joy. While no hearing device can restore someone’s hearing back to normal, it can often give someone their life back.

A Kansas native, Cornejo, who earned a bachelor's degree in speech-language pathology and audiology at Kansas State University, first became interested in the hearing impaired in high school. She took a sign language course at a local junior college with her mother, who, after raising a family, had begun to take courses on her way to becoming an elementary school teacher. At the time, Cornejo had never even known anyone with hearing loss and had never heard of audiology.

“I guess you could attribute my fascination with the ear and the hearing impaired to my mom and sign language class when I was in high school,” said the daughter of a highway patrolman. “My fascination with the ear grew. Not only was it the organ of hearing but it housed the organ of balance.”

Now the head of audiology at the Kerkorian School of Medicine, Cornejo earned her master’s degree in communicative disorders and sciences at Wichita State University in Kansas, and her doctorate in audiology at A.T. Still University in Arizona. She completed a year-long fellowship at the University of Miami Ear Institute, where she also worked as an audiologist for nine years.

All her training — she also spent two years at the Chicago Ear Institute before moving to Las Vegas in 2008 — has paid off. Today, she’s the only audiologist in Nevada to regularly perform sedated auditory evaluations. “These are tests often done on young children, some with challenges which include autism, that evaluate the hearing system and how the brain accepts sound,” she said. “This is done when traditional hearing tests cannot be completed in the clinic. They require the patient to be put under general anesthesia so we triage these cases carefully as we don’t take it lightly when we have to put a child under anesthesia. I perform these cases in conjunction with our pediatric ENT (ear, nose and throat) physicians or our neurotologist most frequently.” 

The Division of Audiology at UNLV Health, Cornejo noted, offers the most extensive and comprehensive testing modalities possible, including diagnostic hearing tests on all populations, diagnostic testing for balance disorders involving the inner ear, and testing for special populations, where sedated auditory testing may be necessary. Rehabilitation services include assessments, fitting, and follow-up on all types of hearing devices that include hearing aids as well as implantable and non-implanted hearing devices. 

“Anyone who has concerns about the hearing of themselves or a loved one should not hesitate to get a hearing evaluation,” she said. “We need to remember that when someone has hearing loss, it not only affects them, but all of their friends and family, their coworkers, their education, and their future.” 

Cornejo, who jogs and goes hiking with her husband and two young daughters to stay fit, said one of the most common questions she hears is, “What is the best hearing aid out there?”

“The short answer,” she said, “is that there isn’t one best hearing aid for everyone. There are about five or six different hearing aid manufacturers that have consistently offered products that have the best sound quality, have a durable hearing aid, invest in good research and development, offer competitive prices, and offer a good warranty for the buyer. There are also strengths and weaknesses with all hearing aid manufacturers. Some are well known for the pediatric hearing aids while another may offer a better hearing aid for a specific hearing loss.

"We have chosen to work with a certain set of hearing aid manufacturers at UNLV Health Audiology based on what they offer and our experience. All of the hearing aids we activate are custom-selected, fit, and programmed for that particular individual. It isn’t something we pull off the shelf. After all, buying hearing aids is a substantial investment for a lot of people and we try our best to make it worth it.”

Learn more about the work of an audiologist.