Bonita Chow: How One Audiologist is Rewriting the Narrative on Tinnitus Care

Overview :

Imagine a sound that no one else can hear. A relentless ringing, buzzing, or hissing that follows you into every quiet room, that weaves itself into every conversation, that turns the simple act of enjoying peace into an impossibility. For millions of people, this is not imagination; it is the daily reality of tinnitus. It is a condition often met with a shrug by the medical community, a frustratingly simple and devastating verdict: “There’s nothing that can be done. You just have to live with it.”

This was the universal narrative that audiologist Bonita Chow saw playing out again and again. It was a narrative of dismissal, one that left patients feeling a profound sense of frustration and despair. But where the medical world saw a dead end, Chow saw a call to action. She saw a population of sufferers being underserved, abandoned to a world of online misinformation and false promises. And so, she decided to become the change she wanted to see in the world.

This is the story of how one clinical audiologist, driven by a quiet frustration and a passion for the complex, chose the road less traveled to become a national pioneer in hearing health, fundamentally redefining how patients can learn to live with—and manage—the sound that never stops.