Ballerina -

I am in awe. James Campbell, MD, trained as a neurosurgeon - and surgical training is always a help around Hopkins - carried a major stick in RSD-Land.

But he was such a jerk! In 2006, a family friend of sorts, then the chair of the Division of Rheumatology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester - suggested that I see a colleague at Hopkins who was working on an anti-IL6 medication. But once the referral letter got to this guy, he said he couldn't see me because RSD was not a "defined rheumatological condition." (Try telling that to Dr. Candy McCabe et al at the Royal Hospital of Rheumatology in Bath.) In any event, rather than see me himself, Dr. Campbell assigned my file to a newly-certified but nontenured "Instructor in Neuro-Immunology," who was almost apoplectic upon reading the chart and walking into the room. She said, "I treat multiple sclerosis, what am I doing seeing you?" When I explained the background, and my physician in Minnesota who said I could get a complete cytokine panel at Hopkins "because they are doing them all the time," I was told that she knew of no way to order the tests for a clinical patient, i.e., outside of a laboratory setting. When I asked if she could just call Dr. Campbell (remembering the level of peer-to-peer communication and consultation at the Mayo Clinic) she looked me square in the eyes and said "What makes you think he would return my call."

Suffice to say, I flew across the country for nothing.

So thank you and yours. That was a good day's work.

Mike