Personal Data
Current
Mailing Address
John
S. Warner
Email: john.warner@vanderbilt.edu
Present
Activity Status: Retired
Tell
us about your community activities: Throughout
the years when I was 35 to 55, I was too busy in clinical practice to devote
much time to community actions –I held a few positions such as serving on the
local Red Cross Board, the MS Board, etc – My wife was the active community
leader – head of the boards of the private elementary school and the girl’s
prep school, the main fund raising organization of Vanderbilt Medical School,
mayor of our suburban city, to name a few
Family
Status:
Married Children 3
(2 doctors,1 lawyer) Grandchildren
6
Professional Experience
What
path has your career taken since your residency? Include military
service, private practice, academic career, teaching
and research accomplishments.
Finished
residency 1961; from 1961-1963 was the only fully trained neurologist at U.S.
Naval Hospital, Portsmouth, Virginia: from 1963-1965 was “instructor” at Duke;
from 1965-1987 was in solo private practice in Nashville; in these years did
part time volunteer teaching at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, rising
to Clinical Professor of Neurology; In 1974 was the founder and first
president of the Southern Clinical Neurology Society, and organization that
holds an annual January meeting and has maintained a membership of about 175
physicians who are neurologist in practice or academic
positions. In 1987 moved to Vanderbilt as Professor of Neurology and
director of the outpatient neuro clinics – about 1990
started the Vanderbilt Headache Clinic – by about 1992 restricted my clinical
practice to headache patients - Wrote multiple articles on headache -Stopped
seeing patients in 2001 and since have been Professor Emeritus of Neurology - I
still give some of the headache lectures to the third year students and write
occasional articles for medical journals.
Residency Recollections
We
are interested in anecdotes and experiences from your residency years.
Include interactions among fellow residents and teaching staff.
At
the time, the service was small which allowed close contact with the faculty
Fernando, Early Nelson,Tony Ianone, Frank Morrel , John Logothetus, having lunch with them almost daily at the
University Club and often being a guest in their homes
A
highlight of my training was being the only neuro
resident (there were no neurosurgical residents and no full time neuro faculty) at the Minneapolis General for 9 months – I
recall diagnosing 3 subdural hematomas
on one day. I remember seeing a patient of Abe Baker’s in the first 6
months when Abe was attending – the patient died without a diagnosis - an
autopsy was performed – I have forgotten the diagnosis – In the last 2 months
of my residency, while rotating on neuropathology, I had to prepare the case
for the biweekly (?) CPC conference – I chose this same case, changing the
patient identify from white to black and his age from 48 to 52 – Abe was the discussor and he missed the diagnosis the second
time.
Looking
back, would you do it again? Gladly
What
would you change? Nothing if
the time was the same
Additional Thoughts
Share
your thoughts regarding the changes in medicine since your residency. In
your opinion, is Neurology positioned well for the future?
I
of course never dreamed of the advances that would occur in the field of
neurology It was an interesting challenge keeping up
with these advances. In about 1978, I was selected by the AAN to be the only practicing neurologist on the 9 man
committee which for the first time was considering recertification as part of
the Board process - I felt strongly that examinations only measured
intelligence and not competence – The other committee members were from
academic centers and initially favored recertification - after
about 5 meetings (over almost 2 years) I was finally able to convince them to
vote against recertification – About 12 years later the Board instituted
recertification, an action that I still feel is a mistake How do you give
a general neurology examination to the university doctor who does only movement
disorders, epilepsy, stroke, headache, etc and might be a leader in one of
these narrow areas?
In
your opinion, is Neurology positioned well for the future? yes
Other
Comments:
In
October 1957 Vanderbilt had only one neurologist and there was one in
I
applied for a neurology residency at
At
the time I knew nothing about the
I
walked into Abe's office at noon as he returned from morning rounds with the
students. I introduced myself and he immediately said he was going to the
University Club for lunch and instructed Early Nelson to take me to a
neighborhood Italian place.
At
1PM when I walked in to meet with Abe, he
immediately asked where I had gone to college and medical school. I gave him a
brief reply, saying The University of the South at
At
that moment Abe offered me a residency. I never learned if he had
received any word from Early about my table manners. Abe spent the next
two hours showing me the department and introducing me to the twelve or so
other members of the neurology faculty. At 3PM I
watched him for the first hour of his two hour third year student conference
which was of course total trauma for the students. As I left for the
airport I decided to take the
Thus
you can see that I was blessed and still have a warm spot in my heard for the
I
have enjoyed teaching. I gave a headache lecture to Vanderbilt's third students
this past Monday. I stopped seeing patients 4 years ago.
If
the powers that be at