reimbursement- were at a net loss for him).
The meeting was arranged. Along with Mindy’s teachers, a large number of school officials also attended, plus Mindy’s parents and Dr. Martin. All sat around a large, rectangular table. Her regular teacher, her aide and her counselor got to talk. They were out of solutions to offer. The Principal suggested that the school could increase the tutoring time with her 1-to-1 aide. ’But school attendance has to be enforced.’ He insisted.
Then Dr. Martin talked. He suggested to reduce her school attendance hours to just half a day in school/half a day at home and to eliminate further insistence upon math and reading, giving her instead during her school hours some exposure to available vocational ‘aide’ options such as nurse’s aide, teacher’s/pre-school aide, bus aide, housekeeping/janitorial aide, and some exposure -not to miss a hidden potential- to arts and crafts. Mom in the meantime would work at home on her reading and writing through periodic easy assignments sent by her regular teacher…
Mom, sitting at one end of the table, listened to him with signs of approval. The Principal was very reluctance to allow such (it would entail less teaching and disruption plus one more bus ride in the middle of the day); yet her regular teacher, her aide and the psychologist were for it… After much discussion and whispering among all, they finally agreed with Dr. Martin’s proposal. The Principal seemed reassured by hearing from the psychologist that the girl most likely would quit any way by 16, just 15 months away, quite legal then. The doc further suggested that in the next academic year when the girl would be 15, that she could spend her school hours in the District’s ‘Voc-Tech’ school to see if they could detect any inclination towards a particular skill. In the rest of the day she could also be employed in the fast food industry and the like.
As a follow up 6 months later and entering the next academic year at the end of the summer, her mother reported to the doctor how much better her daughter was doing, how she was even looking forward to re-start school, how her school skipping in the last trimester of the previous year had stopped, that she had continued to lose weight and that there no longer fights reported by anyone. Hurrah!!!
But Dr, Martin recalled how tough the Principal had been with him. How he had been opposed to his unconventional suggestions. How, after that meeting, the Principal had told him that he was becoming very unpopular with many other Principals too for often recommending special services be terminated for learning disabled kids, for suggesting early school quitting for teenagers who were behind and for being against Early Education for toddlers… [by then, Dr. Martin was already aware of his growing unpopularity various schools’ officials.]
A Superintendent of a large school district an hour away from Dr. Martin who had learned of Dr. Martin’s early fame for being so good with kids with LD, ADD/ADHD and PDD, and who used to have her teachers refer to him students with learning and behavior issues, had invited the doctor to give a conference to her staff. Delighted, he volunteered (for no pay in spite of the 3 hours-plus it would involve). The conference, to expand on his unorthodox views on Early Education, early ‘vocational’ training for teenagers, the genetic origin of most learning issues, etc., was an apparent success, the doctor being bombarded with questions all along -as he actually invited interruptions- till he finished… But at the end, after a brief pause, all of a sudden, with no more questions, he stepped out briefly; ‘I’ll be right back’…
Understandably, -did the Superintended tell the teachers NOT to ask him any more questions? Indeed when he returned and invited more questions, there was… Total silence. He never heard again from anyone in that school district. [And so even Dr. Martin anticipated. He realized that with his openness he was cutting his own throat. That they had talked to OPC…
Dr. Martin’s reputation had gone way up over the years -nearly thirty- as one of the best in treating children with all sorts of neurological, school and developmental issues… But then, at the turn of the Millennium, he was quickly approaching a cliff, precipice. OPC, The Wolves, were begging to form a circle around him for a sure kill…]
CHAPTER 6
Quick Wits But Too Dangerous!
It was the neuropathology conference that was held early on Fridays in the Basic Sciences building of the Medical School. Each week the conference was started by the chief neuropathologist. He gave in a nut shell a brief outline of the case for the audience. The group consisted of neurology and neurosurgery attendings and residents and generally too of several medical students rotating through those two services. The shown case was generally of a recently deceased person.
The detailed clinical history was read, generally no more than two pages, by one of the residents. Then an attending discussed the different possibilities of what may have been, in his judgment, the most likely, correct diagnosis. The chief neuro-pathologist would then follow, presenting in a large screen the slides of the tissues studied in the autopsy, telling the audience what the final, correct diagnosis was.
The case in question was that of a 29 year old woman who had had an 18 month history of generalized progressive incoordination and loss of balance till her death, having been bed ridden for her last 6 months. A friend of Dr. Martin and his senior, Dr. Jack Bear, had taken care of her for some time till she’d died in the neurology ward, and another in his department, Dr. Carlo Porky, had also known her. This last guy, a child neurologist himself, had been consulted in the case -though he usually limited his practice to those under age 20- because of his expertise in neurodegenerative disorders, generally the turf of child neurologists. Both came to the podium, both presuming that she had had some sort of hereditary progressive encephalopathy, or perhaps some form of rapidly advancing M.S. (=Multiple Sclerosis) or P.M.L. (=Progressive Multifocal Leuko-encephalopathy).
No other clinical possibilities were offered by others in the audience as the Neuropathologist, Dr. Collier, asked others to venture their opinion before he gave the final dictum. But in the long pause, the young Dr. Frank Martin got up to say:
“Why can’t this be a case of C.J.D., Creutzfeldt Jacob Disease?”
Dr. Jack Bear quickly got up reacting to that comment by a guy so junior to him:
“Frank, if this turns out to be C.J.D., I’ll give you my Med School Diploma!”
Well, well, well. It DID turn out to be C.J.D.! It is a fatal, progressive encephalo-pathy, supposedly caused by a ‘slow virus.’ We hear that to this date Dr. Martin still keeps Dr. Bear’s Diploma! [just a copy]. On the other hand, Dr. Carlo Porky appeared annoyed with Dr. Martin having been the first to arrive at the correct diagnosis without the benefit of the pathology slides. From then on he was never in good terms with him.
We hear that the tissue of such patient was sent to the pathologists of the NIH (the National Institute of Health) in Bethesda, MD, who concurred with the diagnosis of C.J.D. They further inoculated such tissue into a monkey, who came down, the poor fellow, with C.J.D. several months later!
And upon learning of the diagnosis of C.J.D., Dr. Bear did more detective work into the background of the unfortunate patient and he found out that approximately 6 months prior to the onset of her incoordination she had had a corneal transplant AND that the donor of such cornea had been the cadaver of a person who had died of C.J.D.!
Needless to say, the case, as the first ever of a human-to-human transmission of C.J.D. (via the transplanted cornea) was published in the world-wide, prestigious New Britain Journal of Medicine (name changed). The listed authors were Dr. Bear, the Pathologist Dr. Collier and two neuropathologists of the NIH. There was no mention of the only physician -Dr. Frank Martin- who had been the one to arrive at the correct clinical diagnosis before the pathologist! Ah well…‘I was not meant for fame.’
Two
