OCR Text |
Show NANOS NEWS Sargent and Newman do us proud at AAN Neuro- Bowl This year's Neuro- Bowl at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in Denver pitted two neuro-ophthalmic titans against each other. Jane Sargent, MD ( Worcester, MA) and Nancy Newman, MD ( Atlanta, GA) wowed the crowd of about 1000 neurologists with their command of neurology- not just neuro- ophthalmology, mind you, but general neurology- in a game show of neurologic knowledge. In this annual battle of wits, each team is composed of five neurologists representing a spectrum of neurologic expertise. Dr. Sargent was a member of the defending champion Yanks, while Dr. Newman played for the Jesters. During the game, each contestant may buzz in with a diagnosis after a case vignette or video. Points are awarded to the team for correct answers while points are deducted for incorrect responses . Dr. Newman was brilliant in the qualifying round, leading the Jesters to the championship game. In this preliminary round, Dr. Newman quickly recognized the videos of superior oblique myokymia, voluntary nystagmus, and downbeat nystagmus. She also stunned the crowd with her rapid diagnosis of herpes simplex encephalitis. In the championship game, Dr. Sargent led the Yanks to victory, making the correct diagnosis of Wilson disease based on an unusual psychiatric presentation and identifying a case of Benedikt's syndrome. Dr. Newman led the Jesters in a valiant comeback attempt by brilliantly discussing a case of a dorsal midbrain syndrome manifesting with convergence retraction saccades and by recognizing a patient with neu- The Jesters, valiant in defeat. From left: John Noseworthy, MD ( Rochester, MN), Christopher Goetz, MD ( Chicago, IL), Nancy Newman, MD ( Atlanta, GA), Karen Roos, MD ( Indianapolis, IN), and Louis Ptacek, MD ( Salt Lake City, UT). rosarcoidosis. However, the combination of Dr. Sargent, Jose Biller, MD ( Indianapolis, IN), Anthony Lang, MD ( Toronto, ON), Sami Harik, MD ( Little Rock, AR), and Marc Patterson, MD ( New York, NY) was too much for the Jesters and Dr. Newman. The final score: Yanks 205, Jesters 110. Clearly, Sargent and Newman are two smart docs! Their thirty minutes on stage may have enshrined neuro-ophthalmologists as the wizards of the neuropil. Steven L. Galetta, MD University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania The Yanks, winners of the 2002 American Academy of Neurology Neuro- Bowl. They are holding up three fingers because they have won three years in a row. From left: Kapil Sethi, MD ( judge), Anthony Lang, MD, Marc Patterson, MD, Thomas Swift, MD, ( emcee), Sami Harik, MD, Jane Sargent, MD, and Jose Biller, MD ( Courtesy of American Academy of Neurology, Minneapolis, MN). Copyright © Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 108 JNeuro- Ophthalmol, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2003 NANOS NEWS JNeuro- Ophthalmol, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2003 Sargent and Newman celebrating their survival as contestants on Neuro- Bowl. Terry A. Cox, MD, PhD, neuro- ophthalmologist, biostatistician, and bird- watcher Did you know that brown snakes have wiped out the entire population of birds on Guam by eating their eggs and young? If you've read Oliver Sacks' book, The Island of the Colorblind ( 1), you know this, and you'll see Dr. Terry A. Cox's name in a footnote covering pages 156 to 160. Dr. Cox knows about the birds and brown snakes on Guam from a trip he took there to study the retinopathy of Lytico- Bodig, the strange variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/ Parkinson disease seen in older Chamorro Indians. He published his findings ( 2- 4) with Dr. John Steele ( of Steele- Richardson- Olszewski fame- the neurologists who originally described the disorder now referred to as progressive supranuclear palsy). His trip to Guam had an admitted secondary purpose of bird watching, abbreviated to " birding" by those who do it. Birding and other early loves have given direction to his life. Born in Ottawa, Kansas, he attended high school in the metropolis of Deerfield, Kansas ( population 440), where he reports having earned " 25 or 30" letters in various sports and activities, a feat he credits to having been part of a graduating class that numbered just 12 students. For his first three years of college, he studied mathematics. By his senior year, he had expanded his interests to art history, religion, and philosophy. After graduation, he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He enjoyed the seminary but decided after nine months that he couldn't adapt to Big Apple life and moved back to Kansas. With the Vietnam War- and the draft- in full swing, his conscientious objector status obligated him to community service work. As an orderly in a hospital, he found his vocation in medicine. In record time, premed courses were taken, MCAT " aced," and University of Kansas medical school attended, where he admired neurology until he had Copyright © Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Un Terry A. Cox, MD, PhD ( Bethesda, MD). an epiphany on the ophthalmology rotation. During this period, he learned to love birding, promoted by his wife as a way " to get outdoors." He offers some pertinent advice to novice birders: " If you need to learn how to use binoculars to look at birds, start with birds sitting on the water." After an ophthalmology residency at the University of Kansas, he left for a two- year neuro- ophthalmology fellowship with Drs. Stanley Thompson and James Corbett in nearby Iowa, with one year devoted to research on pupils and visual evoked potentials in anterior ischemic optic neuropathy and optic neuritis. After a brief stint at the University of Nebraska, he spent five years as the neuro-ophthalmologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he enjoyed terrific birding and learned sea kayaking and cycling. But Vancouver's high cost of living and lack of sophisticated neuro-imaging ultimately led to a move to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where he joined forces with Dr. Kathleen Digre and others in ophthalmology and neurology. But he soon faced the dilemma described by one of his favorite poets, Robert Frost: " Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both/ And be one traveler, long I stood.../ 1 took the one less traveled by." Influenced by Dr. Roy Beck, the reigning neuro- ophthalmology epidemiology- public health and policy guru, he went on to study biostatistics, gaining Master's and PhD degrees at the thorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 109 JNeuro- Ophthalmol, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2003 NANOS NEWS University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while working part- time in neuro- ophthalmology in Durham with Dr. Stephen Pollock. ( One wonders on which side of Cameron Indoor Stadium he sat when UNC played Duke?) North Carolina provided excellent out- of- doors possibilities and Dr. Cox admits he might still be on the faculty at Duke had the National Eye Institute ( NEI) not wooed him in 2001 to his current position in Bethesda at the National Institutes of Health's Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Research. At the NIH, Dr. Cox is nominally a " staff scientist," a title and job description that he says has " little to do with what I actually do." He works in the intramural program, which administers laboratory and clinical research projects, as opposed to the extramural program, which administers NIH grants and projects for the vision community outside the NIH. He reviews manuscripts and gives advice on analysis of data and manuscript writing. Researchers from NEI and others in the Biostatistics Branch seek his help with design of research projects and data analysis, but he works mainly on his own projects, including assessment of diagnostic tests in the absence of a gold standard, application of Bayesian methods in clinical medicine, and analysis of research studies with potentially misclassified outcomes. He is a member of the Ophthalmic Technology Assessment Committee of the American Academy of Ophthalmology that is currently putting together an assessment of intraocular lens implantation in the absence of capsular support. He is also active on the NANOS Research Committee and hopes to support neuro- ophthalmologists, especially those fresh out of training, in undertaking rigorous clinical research. Eventually he would like to turn what he has learned into a book- a case- oriented approach to biostatistics using journal articles. It would capsulize his principal objective of helping clinicians " meaningfully criticize and interpret what they read in journals and hear at meetings." Dr. Cox welcomes questions about study design and requests for collaborative help with projects from any NANOS member at his E- mail address: tac@ nei. nih. gov. Lyn A. Sedwick, MD Central Florida Eye Associates Orlando, Florida REFERENCES 1. Sacks O, ed. The Island of the Color Blind. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. 2. Lepore FE, Steele JC, Cox TA, et al. Supranuclear disturbances of ocular motility in Lytico- Bodig. Neurology 1988; 38: 1849- 53. 3. Cox TA, McDarby JV, Lavine L, et al. A retinopathy on Guam with high prevalence in Lytico- Bodig. Ophthalmology 1989; 96: 1731- 35. 4. Campbell RJ, Steele JC, Cox TA, et al. Pathologic findings in the retinal pigment epitheliopathy associated with the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/ Parkinsonism- dementia complex of Guam. Ophthalmology 1993; 100: 3"'- 42. Copyright © Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited. 110 © 2003 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins |