[Nfbf-l] Article on a blind doctor

Sun Jun 6 14:08:26 UTC 2010

Great article
Joe Minichiello, Second Vice President
National Federation of the Blind of Florida
President, Greater Jacksonville Chapter
904-608-0105
jbmini at comcast.net
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sherrill O'Brien" <sherrill.obrien at verizon.net>
To: "NFB of Florida Internet Mailing List" <nfbf-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2010 2:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfbf-l] Article on a blind doctor


> Tara,
>
> Thanks so much for posting this!  What a treat is in store for those of us
> who will have the privilege of hearing this blind MD speak at national
> convention.
>
> Sherrill
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfbf-l-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbf-l-bounces at nfbnet.org]On
> Behalf Of TaraPrakash
> Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2010 2:24 PM
> To: NFB of Florida Internet Mailing List
> Subject: [Nfbf-l] Article on a blind doctor
>
>
> It's not uncommon for co-workers to stumble upon Tim Cordes sitting in the
> dark.
> "I couldn't function in the dark, but he 'sees,'" says Dr. Nancy Barklage,
> who recalls entering a room prior to a UW Health staff meeting, turning on
> the lights and finding Cordes quietly working on his laptop while waiting
> for others to arrive. "I've experienced this a number of times now and it
> still kind of puts you into his reality."
>
> Cordes is blind.
>
> As an infant, he was diagnosed with Leber's disease, a rare degenerative
> condition of the retina that gradually steals one's sight. Cordes still
> remembers one of the first times he heard someone trying to explain how 
> his
> impending blindness would affect his life. "Your son can be president of 
> the
> United States, but he's never going to fly a plane or drive a car," an
> ophthalmologist explained to his parents when Cordes was about 7.
>
> "And as a young boy who liked planes and cars, that was one of my first
> indications that things wouldn't necessarily go smoothly," says Cordes.
> "That made me sad."
>
> He never did fly a plane or drive a car. In fact, when most of his friends
> in Cedar Falls, Iowa, were learning to drive, a 16-year-old Cordes got his
> first guide dog, a German shepherd named Electra.
>
> But Cordes didn't shrink from life. He's now a 34-year-old trailblazing
> physician who is wrapping up the third year of a four-year residency 
> program
> with UW-Madison's department of psychiatry.
>
> "He has overcome challenges that most of us have just never been faced
> with," says Barklage, an associate professor of psychiatry who has
> supervised Cordes' work at UW Health's Psychiatric Institute and Clinic 
> the
> past three years.
>
> Cordes has been reticent to share his story, not wanting to become a 
> poster
> boy for overcoming visual disabilities. But he's slowly becoming more at
> ease telling his inspirational tale. Earlier this spring, the husband and
> father of two young boys wowed 450 members of the Madison Civics Club with 
> a
> speech at Monona Terrace titled, "How I See Possibilities." In July, he'll
> give a similar talk in Dallas at the National Federation of the Blind's
> annual convention. And he contributed a chapter for a book to be published
> later this summer by the Association of American Medical Colleges that is
> designed to guide medical schools in accommodating students with
> disabilities. Cordes' chapter deals with the use of service animals.
>
> "Thirteen years ago, I was knocking on a lot of closed doors," Cordes says
> of his struggles to have medical schools seriously consider him as a
> candidate for admittance. "So the fact a book is coming out describing the
> issues people with disabilities face and ways to accommodate them, I think
> is tremendous progress."
>
> Cordes was valedictorian of his class at the University of Notre Dame in
> 1998, posting a 3.99 GPA while earning an undergraduate degree in
> biochemistry and conducting research on antibiotics. He then was accepted
> into the UW School of Medicine and Public Health's medical scientist
> training program, completing the notoriously challenging sequence that
> requires a student to finish both medical school and a Ph.D.-level 
> research
> program.
>
> Over the years, Cordes also earned black belts in jujitsu and tae kwon do,
> carried the Olympic torch during its cross-country journey to the Salt 
> Lake
> City Games in 2002, and developed computer software that uses a number of
> musical instruments, varying tones and left-right speakers to allow those
> with vision problems to conceptualize and study protein structures.
>
> Despite these made-for-the-big-screen qualities to his life, Cordes 
> remains
> leery of being put on a pedestal: "I look forward to a world where people
> with disabilities do what they can and what they want, and it's not 
> exciting
> or it's not different."
>
> Dr. Brad Schwartz still remembers the paperwork Cordes forwarded to the UW
> Medical School when applying to the medical scientist training program.
>
> While most attempting to head down this path are high achievers, Schwartz
> says Cordes stood out from the pack due to his Medical College Admission
> Test scores, 3.99 GPA in a demanding major and his interesting research on
> antibiotics. It was a reference letter from a Notre Dame researcher,
> however, that floored Schwartz, who was director of the program in the
> spring of 1998.
>
> "It's just this incredible, glowing letter," says Schwartz, now the dean 
> of
> the University of Illinois-Urbana's College of Medicine. "And then you get
> to the last line, and it says, 'This is all the more remarkable because 
> Tim
> is blind.' We're all thinking, 'Oh my God!'"
>
> Schwartz says his admissions review committee agreed Cordes was a
> "one-in-a-million" candidate and assumed "every program in the country 
> would
> be fighting to get him because he was so remarkable."
>
> But that wasn't the case. In fact, Cordes applied to eight schools, but no
> one else showed interest. During one med school exit interview, doctors 
> and
> researchers at a rival Big Ten Conference institution made it clear to
> Cordes, who has only a limited amount of light perception, that there was 
> no
> way a blind student could complete the school's required coursework and
> rotations to earn a medical degree.
>
> Cordes doesn't appear bitter about these rejections, but his mother, 
> Therese
> Cordes, acknowledges it was a difficult time for her son. "To have someone
> tell Tim he's not good enough, despite all he accomplished, was very, very
> tough on him," she says.
>
> Even at UW-Madison, those close to the situation say some top medical 
> school
> administrators were adamantly opposed to admitting Cordes. Concerns 
> centered
> on two factors: the cost to make all the necessary accommodations for a
> blind student; and the fear that the Association of American Medical
> Colleges might frown on a school admitting a student who couldn't see.
>
> In the end, Schwartz stood his ground against the naysayers and Cordes was
> ultimately one of 143 students earning a slot in med school out of 2,300 
> who
> applied. Although no official records are kept and there are various 
> scales
> to measure the extent of vision loss, published reports in 1998 indicated
> Cordes was only the second blind person ever admitted to a U.S. medical
> school. The first was David Hartman, a 1976 Temple grad and psychiatrist 
> in
> Virginia whom Cordes considers a role model.
>
> Some members of the Medical School were guarded about Cordes' chances of
> success at first, says Schwartz. "But I can tell you, each year that he 
> went
> along he won over more and more people," he says. In the years to come,
> Cordes would learn the lessons and complete the tasks asked of every other
> doctor-in-training.
>
> In the classroom, he used books on tape and in Braille to learn the
> fundamentals. He also relied heavily on a computer that could read
> downloaded texts and e-mails at a blistering 500 words per minute -
> something Cordes can easily understand but would sound like gibberish to
> someone accustomed to normal-paced speech. The university also provided 
> him
> with a machine - "It looks a little like an Easy-Bake oven," says Cordes -
> that makes raised-line drawings so he could interpret images using his 
> sense
> of touch.
>
> In the lab, he helped dissect a human cadaver and used his fingers to
> identify the various nerves, muscles and organs. "I was the guy who 
> reached
> into the chest and pulled out the lungs," says Cordes. When it came to
> hospital rotations, he helped deliver babies (earning Student of the Year
> honors in the obstetrics and gynecology rotation), observed surgery - "I
> felt blood flowing through an aorta" - and intubated patients during an
> anesthesiology rotation.
>
> The school also hired "visual describers" to tag along with Cordes and his
> seeing-eye dog to help Cordes read paper charts or act as his eyes during 
> a
> physical exam. In 2004, he earned the title of medical doctor.
>
> His Ph.D. work centered on biomolecular chemistry and the makeup of
> proteins, a field that relies heavily on colorful, computer-generated 
> models
> of complex molecular structures. Out of necessity, Cordes wrote a computer
> program that replicates the 3-D images using a range of audio tones and
> surround-sound speakers, allowing him to "visualize" the proteins in his
> head. In 2007 he earned his Ph.D.
>
> Although Cordes isn't one to puff out his chest and say "I told you so," 
> he
> is proud of the fact he never allowed others to squash his dreams. 
> "Choosing
> to ignore what other people say, when they say it can't be done, is a
> powerful tool," says Cordes.
>
> When Cordes started his medical school journey more than a decade ago, he
> had no desire to work directly with patients. Research was his passion, 
> and
> the medical scientist training program is designed to develop people who 
> can
> bridge the gap between basic research and clinical work.
>
> "I think it was just intellectual curiosity," Cordes said of the
> research-first focus.
>
> But while working his way through the various rotations during his third
> year of medical school, Cordes started to zero in on a specialty and
> re-think his career options. He knew he couldn't be a radiologist but
> thought any other area was up for grabs. A four-week psychiatry rotation 
> at
> the William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital stood out.
>
> "I was lucky and had a really great psychiatrist running the ward I was 
> on,"
> Cordes says of Dr. Tony Braus. "Some of the patients we saw there really 
> got
> better in a relatively short time, and we could see some improvements in
> people."
>
> While he enjoyed interacting with the patients, Cordes also saw the
> potential to conduct groundbreaking research in the study and treatment of
> mental disorders. "There is just a lot we don't know," he says. "In other
> places of medicine, some of the more fundamental questions have been asked
> and answered, but in psychiatry we are just starting to ask them."
>
> So after earning his M.D. and Ph.D., Cordes in 2007 entered a four-year,
> psychiatry research track residency program, which allows him to spend 
> time
> working with patients and conducting research. Although he notes there has
> been no single "ah-ha" moment, Cordes says it's becoming clear his desire 
> to
> work as a clinician and teacher of future doctors is stronger than his 
> drive
> to focus solely on research.
>
> Cordes' typical week currently consists of two-and-a-half days at the
> Veterans Hospital, where he helps supervise the medical interns in an
> inpatient psychiatry unit, and one full day of outpatient care at a UW
> Health clinic in University Research Park, where he oversees more than 100
> patients. He also spends a half-day attending lectures and gets one full 
> day
> for research. His research mainly consists of mining data and searching 
> for
> interesting patterns using the Midlife Development in the United States
> survey, which examines the lives of people ages 30 to 70 in such areas as
> physical health, psychological well-being and factors that might lead to
> mental illness.
>
> At the Veterans Hospital, he also worked on a clinical trial 
> systematically
> rating symptoms in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder.
>
> While he has a proven track record as a researcher, Cordes is also earning
> kudos as a clinician.
>
> "In psychiatry, part of what we do is getting to know patients, 
> establishing
> a rapport and trying to understand what's going on with them so we can 
> help
> them out," says Art Walaszek, the residency training director for
> UW-Madison's
> department of psychiatry. "And Tim just has an incredible, natural ability
> to put people at ease and communicate and listen to them. I don't know
> exactly how he does it, but he just has this awareness of what's going on
> with the patient."
>
> Body language and expressions often convey information to therapists, but
> Cordes is able to pick up on these cues despite his sight limitations. He
> says he's "gotten good at listening to people - not just what they're 
> saying
> but hearing how their body moves or what direction they're talking in."
>
> Colleagues say they can't recall an instance in which a patient did not 
> want
> to be seen by Cordes because he is blind. In fact, says Braus, Cordes'
> disability seemingly allows him to more easily connect with patients.
>
> "It's almost like Tim has more credibility with some patients," says 
> Braus,
> who today works at the VA's outpatient clinic. "Tim knows what it means to
> recover from something or to be able to compensate or overcome a problem.
> People at some level seem to relate to that."
>
> It's not easy keeping pace with Cordes - even if you can see.
>
> With sprinkles just starting to fall one dreary spring morning, Cordes and
> Vance - his loyal guide dog for the past nine years - walk briskly from 
> the
> bus stop to his office.
>
> The ride from near his home on Madison's East Side to UW Health's
> Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, which is across town in University
> Research Park, takes about 40 minutes - not bad considering Cordes has to
> transfer buses on the UW-Madison campus. The jaunt from the final stop to
> the clinic takes about five minutes at a quick pace. Somehow, Cordes
> narrowly misses several potholes on the driveway leading to his office.
> Those who have watched Cordes for years insist he has some sort of 
> internal
> radar.
>
> "He has this like, Zen, where he can walk through the living room and not
> step on all my son's trains," says his wife, Blue-leaf, a native of India
> and a 1994 Madison East grad who met Cordes while interviewing for the
> M.D.-Ph.D. program, which she also completed. "I don't know how he does it
> without falling and hurting himself."
>
> Before long, Cordes is heading up a set of stairs leading to a back 
> entrance
> of the clinic. He scans his security badge to gain entry to the facility;
> it's
> just past 7 a.m.
>
> Using his sharp memory and displaying complete trust in Vance, Cordes
> quickly moves down a hall to his office, drops off his jacket and 
> backpack,
> and heads back down a hallway to separate locked rooms that house medical
> records and the mail. He intuitively slides his hand over the keypad
> security system, and quickly taps out the code. Inside, Braille labels 
> allow
> him to promptly grab the correct patient records and mail.
>
> Back in his office, he sets the papers neatly on his desk before flipping
> open his laptop and scanning through e-mails using screen-reading software
> that ticks off the messages in quick order. Like clockwork, Jeanne Harris,
> one of Cordes' visual describers, arrives in the office at 7:10 a.m. to 
> read
> over any faxed-in requests for prescription refills or hand-written notes,
> charts or surveys Cordes can't read himself. (For many printed materials, 
> he
> can take a picture of a document with his smart phone, and a program will
> read it to him.)
>
> Ten minutes later, the paperwork is cleared, Vance is resting on the floor
> in the office, and Cordes is preparing for a day of numbers-crunching
> research on his computer.
>
> It's easy to be impressed by how efficiently Cordes operates, but he 
> wishes
> others would view it as ordinary. "Just like you, I have a job to do and I
> figured out how to do it," he explains. "To me, it's gratifying how
> profoundly routine this all seems at times."
>
> Even those closest to Cordes - the ones who have never doubted his
> potential - confess it's difficult to view this all as merely routine.
>
> Therese Cordes still has vivid memories from three decades ago when she 
> put
> a 2-year-old Tim in the car and drove him to meet with the University of
> Iowa's highly regarded pediatric ophthalmologists. The experts there gave
> her little hope, rattling off a list of things her only son would never be
> able to do.
>
> "I cried all the way home," says Therese, "and then decided to forget
> everything they told me."
>
> Tim Cordes credits his mother for being a rock of emotional support over 
> the
> years, while his father, an engineer, was pragmatically supportive - the
> problem-solver and the one who helped Tim get up to speed with many of the
> technological gizmos he relies on.
>
> It also didn't hurt that Cordes was being pushed by two older, successful
> sisters, both of whom were valedictorians of their high school class (Tim
> finished as runner-up during his senior year) before also moving on to 
> Notre
> Dame.
>
> Earlier this spring, Therese Cordes was in tears again after her son got a
> standing ovation following his riveting speech to the Madison Civics Club.
> "He's inspirational," said the proud mother.
>
> What, exactly, the future holds for Cordes isn't clear. After he completes
> the four-year residency program in July of 2011, he's considering 
> additional
> training so he can help people with drug addiction problems. Another 
> option
> is to land a position working with military veterans suffering from
> post-traumatic stress disorder and severe brain injuries, work Cordes 
> enjoys
> and finds rewarding.
>
> No matter what direction Cordes ultimately decides to push his career, he
> has no intention of becoming part of what he calls "today's risk-averse
> society."
>
> "I went to a playground with my son and I found out what passes for a
> teeter-totter these days," he explained during his civics club speech. 
> "It's
> a U-shaped, spring-loaded contraption that assures nobody gets too high 
> off
> the ground or nobody comes down too hard."
>
> Cordes adds proudly: "I learned to swing on monkey bars - which I could 
> not
> see well - over asphalt. I learned that if you fall it hurts, so you try 
> not
> to fall. But it's still worth swinging."
>
>
> Adam Morris
>
> Mobile: 0414 431105
>
> Twitter
> awmorris
>
> Regards Steve
> Email:  srp at internode.on.net
> MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
> Skype:  steve1963
> Twitter:  steve9782
>
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