I had a sudden unexplained hearing loss of my right ear last year, most likely unrelated to shooting. Probably an immune response to an infection, maybe covid, though I was never tested at that time. This is not uncommon for people over 40 or so, but most people get their hearing back, however, I did not. I am now mostly deaf in my right ear and have pretty loud tinnitus.
My audiogram showed pre-existing unexplained hearing loss (also unrelated to the sudden hearing loss in my right ear) in my left ear as well. When my audiologist heard I was a shooter, she said it was likely from that. I am usually careful with hearing Pro. I usually double up when indoors with muffs and plugs. I have also used molded plugs made by Steve at Ear Safety systems (see above post).
I did have an incident in a match in 2018 when I had forgotten to double up and my hearing protection got pushed as I shot a group in quick succession indoors. Not sure if that's what caused it or not.
Plenty of people have been exposed to gunfire and not had immediate hearing loss but who knows. My brother who has been a shooter and musician his whole life has almost perfect hearing at 54 yrs old as he had an audiogram done last year as well because of a minor sudden hearing loss which came back fully.
Anyway, though my ENT doctor is out of Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in Burlington, I went to Mass Eye and Ear in Stoneham for hearing aid fitting as I have a relative who is a retired audiologist from ME&E and she recommended that office as she considers a former colleague there to be one of the best. I would recommend ME&E to anyone. The current ENT I have out of HVMA in Burlington, I would also recommend but I initially saw another doctor out of the Quincy office during Covid and I did not care for that Dr. or the office in general.
I think you would be hard pressed to find an ENT doctor who would be pro shooting but they must exist I guess.
I do recommend anyone that shoots gets hearing checks at least once every couple of years by an audiologist. The checks your PCP might do with tuning forks is basically useless as my doctor checked my hearing in 2019 and said it was perfect but I already had some severe hearing loss by then as I came to find out later.
It sucks to have hearing loss so protect those ears!