Current Mailing Address

Ronald DeVere

607 Eagle

Austin, TX 78734

 

Email Address: rdevere@autin.rr.com

 

Present Activity Status: Working

 

Tell us about your community activities: My wife and I are in a golf Club play once a week.  We are in a wine tasting Group once a month; I have a 26 foot sail boat and sail regularly on a local lake.  I ride a road bike, 4-5 times a week for exercise.

 

Family Status: Married with children and grandchildren.

 

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

 

I have been in private practice since 1974, in Houston for 27 years currents for the last 3 years in Austin Texas it has been a solo practice.  After leaving the U of M residency, I spent 14 months at Newcastle, England.  I did 6 months as Senior House Office under directorship of Sir John Walton and Dr. Walter Bradley.  The latter 8 months was doing a clinical research study with Dr. Bradley- “The Morbidity and mortality of polymyositis” it was a review of 118 cases and published in Brain in 1975.  From 1974-93 my main focus was EMG and Neuromuscular disorders plus general neurology.  From 1993 to the present I changed my focus to cognitive neurology (memory disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease etc.)  This has always been my main passion.  I shifted to this area of Neurology when Cognex was released as the first treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.  I have run an Alzheimer Disease and Memory Disorders Center since that time to the present.  I became very interested in Taste and Smell Disorders in Neurological Disorders.  This occurred partly because I lost some of my smell afferents after a bad cold, and the report back in 1990 that Alzheimer’s patients have an unrecognized smell and taste disorder (they do not recognize it.)  Hence I spent 3-4 days with Dr. Richard Doty at the University of Pennsylvania Smell and Taste Center in Philadelphia in 1995.  I am actually trying to educated physicians including neurologists how to evaluate and heal patients with smell and taste disorders.  I am currently writing a book for patients in regard to this subject, because there are no publications on this matter currently. 

 

Other accomplishments:

President of the Texas Neurological Society 1985

Board of Director Southeast Texas Chapter of the Alzheimer Association from 1996-2002

Elected to Governor of Texas council on Alzheimers Disease –just appointed for a 3 year term.

Fellow of the American Academy of Disability Evaluating physicians since 1990.  I do assessments of workers compensation patients.

Diplomat American Academy Electrodiagnostic medicine 1998

Fellow of Academy of Neurology since 1985.  

 

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

 

What I liked best was the great academic environment of the residency program, it was very friendly among the staff and residents.  Dr. Bakers medical student lectures and his Saturday morning rounds were a highlight.

 

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

 

I would do it the same without hesitation.  I would place more emphasis on outpatient neurology disorders because of health insurance rules and the difference in hospital usage at this time we have seen a flip were neurology use to be 80% hospital and 20% outpatient it is not the opposite.

 

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

 

Neurology has shifted to the outpatient manly because of health insurance payment structures and managed care medicine which is much more cost efficient.  Neurology has had to continue to fight it and to get appropriate testing and treatment of patients.  From 1990 to 2002 the fight was very difficult.  It appears in the last 2-3 years the fight is much less.  The reimbursement issue has been a real problem for neurology over the last 10 years worse in the last 3 to 4.  Because of the rising office expense (more help to run the office) and lower reimbursement Neurologist have become “Family Practice Doctors.”  That is they are seeing 20 to 40 patients a day to make a living.  That result in shorter neuroevalutations, and because of this rushing more errors and mistakes are produced.  One neurologist told me that he would rather see 4 headache patients than one dementia case; he was referring to the lack of time and reimbursement.  Neurologists like other specialists are freely using Nurse Practitioners and physician’s assistants to speed up the office practice and see more patients.  The one to one patient relationship is slowly being eroded.  The Neurology Expertise will not be changed but the Neurologist may be doomed to see many more patients.  Do more procedures and spend less time with patients to make a living.