Professor Peter Rea

Professor Rea is consultant ear nose and throat surgeon at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and one of the leading ENT surgeons in the UK. He has been a consultant since 2003, and qualified in 1991, allowing him to share over 30 years of clinical experience with his patients. He assesses both adults and children for ear nose and throat disorders in his private clinics. 

Whilst his specialist ear surgery and balance clincs attract patients from all over the UK and abroad, often referred by other consultants, Professor Rea says he is just as happy removing your ear wax, or assessing your blocked nose or your child's sore throats, as he is investigating you for complex disorders that you may have seen many other experts about.

He runs one of the busiest balance clinics in the UK where along with his team approximately 7,000 balance appointments are undertaken per year. He has a busy general ENT and ear surgery practice undertaking 7 clinics  and 3.5 operating lists per week. He is Honorary Professor of Balance Medicine at De Montfort University, and Honorary Professor to the Departments of Neuroscience and Informatics at The University of Leicester.

His undergraduate medical training commenced at The University of Cambridge where he obtained First Class Honours, and subsequently at The University of Oxford where he completed his undergraduate clinical training in 1991. His registrar training was based around the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital in London. On becoming a Fellow of The Royal College of Surgeons he was awarded The Gold Medal of The Royal Society of Medicine (Section of Otology).

He has led the profession as President of The British Society of Otology with his term of office from 2020-2022, as President of the Royal Society of Medicine, Section of Otology from 2023-2024, and as President of The British Society of Neuro-otology from 2013-2019. He has also acted as UK secretary of the European Academy of Otology and Neuro-otology.

He is on the faculty of many national and international otology and neuro-otology meetings and courses. This includes Academic Vice-Chair of BACO 2023, which is by far the UK's biggest ENT academic meeting. He has run the annual 3-day Leicester Balance Course since 2004. He has been a regular reviewer of academic papers for leading journals including Clinical Otolaryngology, The Journal of Neurology, and the BMJ. And he has appeared in TV and radio documentaries including one of the BBC's most downloaded podcasts.

His research interests include intra-tympanic therapies for Meniere's Disease with a landmark paper published in the Lancet in 2016. He has authored many scientific papers and written for leading textbooks of ENT, most recently the Oxford Textbook of Vertigo, and the Oxford Textbook of Otolaryngology (both published in 2025), and Scott Brown Otolaryngology. He is co-applicant on a project for a body-worn balance diagnostic device (the CAVA) awarded a £1,200,000 NIHR development grant, and is now helpng to develop an AI powered inner ear treatment.