Dr Mills is Consultant Otolaryngologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
He trained at the London Hospital Medical College and graduated in 1973.
His postgraduate training in otolaryngology was in Bristol and Guy’s Hospital and King’s College Hospital in London.
During this period he obtained an MPhil for his work on otitis media (inflammation of the middle ear) in children.
In 1986 he was appointed as Consultant Otolaryngologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.
While in Dundee he obtained an MS for his work on ossicular reconstruction.
In 1998 he moved to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and became head of the University of Edinburgh’s Otolaryngology Unit.
In 2005-06 he was President of the Section of Otology of the Royal Society of Medicine.
Since 2005, he has been the Director of the Fourth Year of the Edinburgh Medical Curriculum.
His main research interest is middle ear mechanics.
He has established a fully equipped middle ear laboratory, including a laser vibrometer for measuring stapes displacement in vitro.
With the Engineering Department of Dundee University, his team are developing a piezoelectric middle ear hearing implant for patients with sensori-neural hearing loss.
A novel ossicular replacement prosthesis for patients with conductive hearing loss is also being developed.