Measuring Success by the Decibel Erika Woodson ’99 turned an undergraduate love of biology into a career in ear surgery.
Erika Woodson ’99 specializes in good vibrations. When she decided to attend medical school, she thought she wanted to become a trauma surgeon. However, she quickly fell in love with the complexity of the inner ear. Today, she is a neurotologist and is the principal surgeon for all complex tumors of the skull base at Kaiser Permanente Southern California.
A first-generation college student, Woodson was introduced to Washington and Lee University through the U.S. Department of Education’s TRIO Talent Search Program, which identifies and assists students from disadvantaged backgrounds to prepare them for postsecondary education. Growing up in rural southwestern Virginia, very few of Woodson’s peers went on to enroll at four-year institutions. Through Talent Search, Woodson had the opportunity to visit W&L early in her high school career with Karen Pleva, the wife of Michael Pleva, a chemistry professor at W&L.
Following that visit, Woodson knew she had found the right fit. Coming from a small community, she liked the intimate, liberal arts atmosphere at W&L and the close relationships students formed with professors.
“It seemed at once very picturesque, important and genuine,” Woodson said. She ultimately applied early decision.
Although she came to W&L interested in meteorology, Woodson found herself gravitating towards biology and chemistry classes. She chose to major in biology and began to volunteer at Stonewall Jackson Hospital, now Carilion Rockbridge Community Hospital. Woodson worked during the summer at the hospital in both assisted living and at the triage desk in the emergency room. She remembers the show “ER” being very popular during her undergraduate career but joked that volunteering in the emergency room showed her the reality of working in medicine.
“In the end, I decided that I really liked people, and I liked helping people,” Woodson said. “I saw myself working in medicine more than I could see myself doing research.”
After graduating from W&L, Woodson attended the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University. During her first year, she found herself fascinated by the intricacy and structure of the head and neck, specifically in the ear and skull base.
“My husband tells me that he knew I was going to be an ear surgeon from the very first time I saw a stapes surgery, which is where we replace the smallest bone in the body with an artificial bone to correct hearing loss,” Woodson said.
Following the completion of medical school, Woodson matched into the otolaryngology, or ENT, residency program at the University of Iowa. After completing her residency, she stayed at Iowa to complete a two-year fellowship in neurotology. Neurotology is a subspecialty of ENT that focuses on the ear and skull base, which Woodson described as the watershed between ENT and neurosurgery. Neurotology is a very small specialty; there are only 15-20 doctors who match into neurotology programs each year.
“I sometimes measure my clinic in hugs, instead of patients seen.” – Erika Woodson ’99
“The surgeries are very technical, intricate and challenging,” she said. “We live in the space between neurology and neurosurgery, sometimes ophthalmology and all of ENT. You have to be able to synthesize information and have genuine intellectual curiosity to do the job well.”
“What’s cool about ear surgery is that I can measure how good of a surgeon I am to the decibel,” she continued.
After completing her fellowship, Woodson moved to Ohio to work at Cleveland Clinic, where she became the medical director of the hearing implant program and section head of neurotology/lateral skull base surgery.
Woodson has served in leadership positions as the chair of the Women of Otolaryngology and as a founder/inaugural co-chair of the Young Neurotologist Committee.
In 2022, she began her current role at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, which has allowed her to focus more on her patients. She primarily performs complex ear surgery and operates on conditions that are within the headspace between the ear and the brain stem and skull base tumors. However, it is her relationship with her patients that continues to motivate and inspire her.
“I sometimes measure my clinic in hugs, instead of patients seen,” Woodson said.
She credits her time at W&L with teaching her how to be a well-rounded individual and how to strike a healthy work-life balance, where hard work and enjoyment coexist. In addition to her biology major, Woodson was a member of Kappa Delta sorority and was a founding member of the Women in Technology and Science student organization.
“I think there is a tremendous value to the liberal arts education,” Woodson said. “There’s something to that rigor that prepared me well for medical school. Ultimately, we’re not going to be effective as physicians if we can’t communicate well with people.”
