Martin Burton is Director of Cochrane UK, the unit responsible for supporting the activities Cochrane contributors in the UK and Ireland (uk.cochrane.org).  He is an Honorary Consultant Otolaryngologist at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, based at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, Professor of Otolaryngology in the Nuffield Department of Surgery at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Clinical Medicine at Balliol College.  He was the founding co-ordinating editor of Cochrane ENT (ent.cochrane.org) and Clinical Lead of the ENT & Audiology Library of the UK’s National Library for Health. 

He trained as a medical student at Cambridge and Oxford Universities and did his early clinical training in Oxford and Bristol.  He was a Fulbright Scholar and undertook research training at the Kresge Hearing Research Institute at the University of Michigan.   Following a period as Lecturer in Otolaryngology at the University of Melbourne, he completed his doctoral thesis on the safety of cochlear implantation in small children.  His higher surgical training was completed in London and as Fellow in Otology, Neurotology & Skull Base Surgery at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA.  

His clinical practice is otological – hearing loss, tinnitus and balance disorders.  He is interested in the application of evidence-based practice across all areas of health and social care, the promotion of public understanding of health research, and how patients and health professionals can – together – handle uncertainty.