Personal Data

Current Mailing Address

Terrance D. Capistrant

474 Holly Lane North

Oakdale, MN 55128

Email Address capis004@umn.edu

Present Activity Status: Retired

Family Status: *Married Children Grandchildren

I am married for 45 years to Jacque, a wife, secretary, fashion consultant, mother and grandmother and have 3 adult children (all boys ) and 6 grandchildren. The grandchildren are very special and get lots of fussing over by their grandparents.

Professional Experience

What path has your career taken since your residency? Include military service, private practice, academic career, teaching and research accomplishments. Career path since residency e.g. .military service, private practice, academic career.

After completing residency in 1967 I fulfilled my 2 year obligation with the U. S. Public

Health Service (The CORD program the U.S. Public Health Service's version of the Berry Plan ) These programs were designed to allow a student to complete his specialty training during the Viet Nam War era when doctors were drafted to age 35. I was assigned to a section called the Neurological and Sensory Disease program essentially a granting arm of the NIH. It was a good duty. I was on Georgetown's staff as an instructor in charge of an outpatient muscle disease clinic and had time for extensive learning "junkets". e.g. a week in Miami for neuro-ophthalmology, a week in Long Beach for Spinal Injury, a week at the Armed forces Institute of  Pathology for  Neuropathology etc. All people in the Service complain and I was no exception but it in retrospect was a great time and Washington D.C.is a great place to be located.

I returned to St. Paul to join Bob Gumnit's staff at St. Paul Ramsey Hospital for about 2 years before going into private practice with Zon Miller and Richard Foreman for 8 years. Dick, Paul Schanfield and I then formed a group called Neurological Associates of St. Paul which continues today as the major neurology group in St. Paul. As anyone in practice will agree it was "nose to the grindstone" work. I taught clinical neurology to Family Practice residents from 1970 to my retirement in 1998. I used the "Baker Method" but I could not duplicate the piercing look he gave while waiting for the answer.  Teaching was my proudest achievement during my practice years and I get satisfaction from knowing I had a hand in training a generation of Family Practice "docs" scattered around the state. Stroke was always my primary research and clinical interest during my practice years but in 1994 I developed a strong "self interest" in Parkinson's disease after diagnosing the symptoms in myself. I feel fortunate that my course has been mild and I followed a conservative approach to treatment using 5 years of dopamine agonists before starting levodopa. Jim Allen was my treating neurologist until he retired.

  Retirement is great and I enjoy travel , woodworking , golf, hunting, fishing and reading

and of course interacting with the grandkids.

Residency Recollections

We are interested in anecdotes and experiences from your residency years. Include interactions among fellow residents and teaching staff.

I recall a very good residency program. I remember being accepted at Mayo and asking A. B. Baker to make a decision re: my application. I still think it was the correct decision. Training at the University, VAH and 2 county hospitals equipped us with a wide experience in the field of neurology. I appreciated A.B. as a chief and for giving us the basic skills of clinical neurology. The additional skills however needed as a consultant in the field required the pearls and bits of wisdom from the likes of Milt Ettinger, John Logathetis,  Milt Alter, Fernando Torres, Bob Gumnit  and Ken Swaiman.  

I can recall many incidents during the residency of humor, anxiety etc. I remember  John Wolf who, as a multilinguist,  read about the brain stem syndromes  in the original French and German  (and later published a book about them) correcting Dr. Baker as the rest of us cowered in our seats. He would not of course accept the corrections. On another occasion Dr. Baker had me, a first year resident, inject steroid into the paraspinus muscles of Art Klassen, a third year resident after Art complained of back aches. Too intimidated by A.B. to refuse I carried out the deed. I can recall as I injected the last of the steroid Art turning around and whispering to me "you quack".

Looking back, would you do it again? What would you change?

Yes, I would do it again. A great residency might combine a clinical outpatient year at the Mayo Clinic, perhaps as an elective with the rest of the residency at the Univ., VAH, and the County Hospitals. This, as an elective, might train a young Neurologist some of the etiquette and skills of communication with referral physicians so lacking among many of the Univ. trained neurologists.

Additional Thoughts

Share your thoughts regarding the changes in medicine since your residency. In your opinion, is Neurology positioned well for the future?

Some changes were inevitable. We are now able to do so many expensive and dramatic things to and for people that it is a matter of where to stop. In practice in the past we made a judgment as to how many tests were required to evaluate, for example, a headache patient. Today a CT or more likely an MRI is done at an early stage with little likelihood of finding pathology to correlate with the headache. The benign nature of the new tests malpractice considerations and patient expectations all play a role. I see no alternative to practice parameters, and a rationing of test and treatments in the future. Medicine was simpler and in many ways more enjoyable in the past. Collegiality has suffered with fractioning caused by HMO affiliations etc. Does this sound like the rantings of an "old timer"?  The treatment options now for many diseases of the nervous system are truly amazing. I shudder to think of what my level of functioning would be without the new Parkinson meds. Despite these lamentations neurology is as exciting a field as any in medicine and I think neurologists are getting training in the right area. I now would like to see it attract the top students.