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The guest speaker lecture and awards ceremony sponsored by Olympus America Inc was an early program highlight of the 2009 AACC/CSCC Annual Meeting and Clinical Lab Expo, held at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center. Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP, dubbed “the poet laureate of medicine” by The New York Times, delivered a stirring address following the presentation of the Fourth Annual Olympus Partnership Awards.
Dr Sacks is a world-renowned neurologist and is generally regarded as one of the great medical writers and storytellers of our time. His bestselling books include Awakenings (which inspired the Oscar®-nominated film starring Robin Williams), The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood. His latest book, published in fall of 2008, is Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain.
Through his books, Dr Sacks has educated fellow clinicians, scientists, and the public at large about the profound mysteries of the human brain, including its impressive ability to help heal the body. The stories shared in his books are also credited with helping to restore the individual patient to a central place in the practice of medicine.
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| Goldsmith greets Sacks. |
Dr Sacks’ address at AACC, titled “Awakenings Revisited and the Art of Medicine,” was open to all meeting attendees and drew a full house. Dr Sacks is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and has been appointed a Columbia University Artist. He serves on the board of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, among other organizations.
A Beautiful Complementarity
Well noted for his curiosity, Dr Sacks discussed the origins of that curiosity by relating several fascinating anecdotes about growing up in a household where his parents, both physicians, did their own lab work. This included blood smears to identify pathogens as well as screening patients for diabetes, sometimes by sniffing urine samples for the scent of acetone. (He also noted that urinalysis dates back to the Egyptians.)
Dr Sacks spoke about how chemistry was his first love and how his passion for the subject led him to medical school and, subsequently, to a specialty in neurology. He discussed the work that led to his well-known book and movie, Awakenings, in which his administration of L-dopa to patients with severe Parkinson’s disease caused those who had not moved or spoken in decades to literally come back to life.
The audience was highly interested in his comments about the interplay he observed in these patients between mood and well-being, and their ability to maintain consistent dopamine levels. He said that he saw that the “chemistry wasn’t enough”; that “personal interactions and chemical balances were inseparable.”
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| Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP |
In comments addressed to the media following his presentation, Dr Sacks elaborated on this interplay, saying that he thinks mood and mental health are critically important for physical health in all humans but that these patients with chemical imbalances were particularly sensitive to fluctuations in emotional state.
Dr Sacks also spoke about the “beautiful complementarity” between physicians and laboratorians, and commented that as lab work becomes more complex and sophisticated, lab personnel become increasingly integral to the practice of medicine. He said that the laboratorian operates at the “crucial interface between chemistry and medicine. Together, you complete the picture.”
A Proud Sponsor
Olympus, whose Diagnostic Systems Group offers a broad line of chemistry and immunochemistry systems for hospital and reference laboratory testing, sponsored Dr Sacks’ AACC address as part of its Partnership Awards Program. The program is dedicated to expanding education and partnerships between science and industry.
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Prior to Dr. Sacks’ presentation, the Fourth Annual Olympus Partnership Award was presented to AACC’s Van Slyke Foundation. Accepted by AACC President Barbara Goldsmith, PhD, FACB, the award will support travel and attendance at next year’s meeting for laboratory scientists from the developing world. Dr Sacks also commented on his observations during traveling in Eastern Europe that supporting the development of laboratory science outside the United States is critically important to improving the practice of medicine.
“We are proud to support the work of the AACC,” said Michael Krenz, vice president of diagnostic systems sales at Olympus America. “Clinical chemistry professionals work every day with vitally important patient tests. They adhere to rigorous accuracy and reliability standards, and yet, to be the best in their field, they must also never forget that there are real human beings with real lives behind each test. Dr Sacks understands how scientific research, clinical medicine, and human compassion intersect, and is a perfect person to bring his special insight to these dedicated professionals.”
Judging by the warm reception his talk received, the AACC audience of laboratorians was in complete agreement.
