Session 53 Dr. Jacqueline Bernard is an academic Neurologist who specializes in treating patients with multiple sclerosis. She is a physician at OHSU (Oregon Health and Science University). We talk about the specialty and so much more. Tune in every week to hear different stories of specialists even if you're interested in going into primary care. One of the questions I ask them is what they wish primary care doctors knew about their specialty. Also, check out all our other podcasts on MedEd Media. This week, I interview Jacqueline who has been in practice now and out of her training for many years now. She has been in the community-based setting and is now back in an academic setting. I was diagnosed with MS about three and a half years ago so this episode hits home for me. So we chat about her career as an MS specialist, what drew her to it, what keeps her happy, things she didn't like about it, and her advice to you if this is something you're interested in. [02:04] What Do Her to Becoming an MS Specialist Jacqueline says her interest grew in her. As a woman, her practice was getting referred a lot of female patients with neurological disease. And a large percentage of them were patients with MS. She realized very early on how this was a very compelling group of people. They were trying to educate themselves as much as they could about this disease process and what treatments are out there. This grabbed her pretty quickly once she was in the region of the country where it was disproportionately highly prevalent compared to other places. Minnesota for instance, has a lot of MS cases. So it was the volume of patients she was seeing that grew quickly. Within a couple of years from moving to the state, this impacted her. "MS is a very tricky disease. You have to be able to detect it. That's also true about Neurology in general." Jacqueline explains how MS is a tricky disease and you would have to be able to detect it to figure out what's going on because it can relapse and remits. So you'd have to look at the circumstantial evidence. It might  involve various parts of the nervous system such as optic nerve, spinal cord, or the brain. So you get to see the impact of the inflammation in a lot of different ways. The most compelling part for her is how people are able to manage it and how they bounce back and continue to really live with the disease. Another piece about it is that people with MS can have really severe attacks. Jacqueline says you can help them get through that and bounce back. Ans this is something that inspires her to help patients. [05:45] Traits that Lead to Being a Good MS Specialist Jacqueline says you have to be curious about the path of MS and having interest in all the different ways you can suppress inflammation. If you're interested in neuro immunology, Jacqueline things it's one of them most interesting parts of clinical medicine today. "It's really an interesting disease to watch over the last 20 years because in the process of trying figure out ways to stop inflammation, a lot of science is being uncovered." Jacqueline was initially drawn to Epilepsy seeing how it has interesting science and mechanisms. In fact, it's more interesting now that there are certain antibodies found to be associated with refractory epilepsy. She was also interested in moving disorders, having had some of the country's best moving disorder specialties in their school. They actively engaged them into going rounds and invited them to hang out. They taught all the perils along with their fascination and passion about moving disorders. She specifically cited one of the editors of Handbook of Neurology who was their teacher - a big supporter of medical students. In fact, 10% of each class went into Neurology because of his teaching. Teachers have a huge impact in the way they bring the top of the live and how that inspires students. Anyway, she ended up doing MS which for her was workable for someone trying to raise a family. "MS