COM alum Shehzaad Zaman featured in NPR story on cochlear implants

Shehzaad Zaman, D.O., a 2009 graduate of UNE's College of Osteopathic Medicine, was featured in an April 12, 2012 NPR story titled "Cochlear Implants Redefine What It Means To Be Deaf." Dr. Zaman, who practices in Sacramento, Calif. in the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation, was deaf from birth until his senior year of high school when he had a cochlear implant, a new technology at the time.

He explains to NPR that for him it was practical as well as emotional. He wanted to go to medical school and he knew a doctor needed to hear.

"In medicine, it's not acceptable to hear 70 percent of information, because that can make a difference in terms of quality of patient care," he says. "So I was always trying to get up to 100 percent accuracy in terms of understanding the information."