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Draft:Thomas Robert Swift (neurologist)


Photograph of Swift here See Ticket#2024070610005015

Thomas Robert Swift (neurologist)

Thomas R Swift is an American neurologist, educator, author and artist. His contributions to neurology are in the field of neuromuscular diseases, including myasthenia gravis and leprosy. From 1973 to present, he has trained two generations of neurology specialists at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG) in Augusta. Swift is a past president of the American Academy of Neurology as well as two other national medical societies, and is a textbook author, novelist, and artist.

Education

Swift received a Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature in 1961 from Trinity College in Hartford, CT, with a special interest in Samuel Johnson. He obtained a Medical Doctor degree from Cornell University Medical College in 1965 and then trained in Internal Medicine at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and the University of Washington Hospital in Seattle, WA. He returned to New York in 1967 as a neurology resident at New York Hospital under Fred Plum, and at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center under Jerome Posner. In 1972 he moved to the National Hansen Disease Center in Carville, LA where he studied leprosy with Paul Brand. He completed his education in 1973 with a fellowship in neurophysiology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.

Professional Life

Following a position as Clinical Instructor in Neurology at Louisiana State University and as Deputy Chief at the Carville US Public Health Service Hospital (see below), Swift joined the neurology faculty of MCG in 1973 and was appointed director of the Electromyography Laboratory. [1] He was chairman of the MCG Department of Neurology for 18 years (1982 to 2000). He has held other leadership positions at MCG.

Swift has published 93 papers and book chapters and is co-author of the textbook Instant Neurological Diagnosis (Oxford University Press, 2016 and 2019). [2] His contributions to neurology have been in the diagnosis and treatment of neuromuscular disorders, including myasthenia gravis and leprosy.

Professional Societies

Swift has had a role in the 40,000 member American Academy of Neurology [3] for much of his career, serving as president from 2005−2007. [4] He launched and hosted the annual Neurobowl competition at the AAN annual meeting where teams of neurologists competed on stage to achieve diagnoses of neurological cases in front of an audience of several thousand colleagues. [5] Swift has also been president of the Society of Clinical Neurologists (1984) [6], president of the American Association of Electrodiagnostic Medicine (1993) [7], and chair of the Medical Advisory Board of the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation (1989-1991) [8].

Awards

MCG recognized Swift with a Lifetime Achievement Award] in 2022. [9] He has received other national and local awards.

Artistic and Literary Life

Swift is an artist and novelist. His art includes pencils, pastels and watercolors that feature nature and landscapes, and his work was the focus of a 2022 exhibition at the Sacred Heart Cultural Center in Augusta, GA. [10] In his 2023 novel Carville: Mischief, Mayhem, and Medicine in Cajun Country, he describes life at the leprosarium (see Leprosy in Louisiana) where he had served as a medical staff member in 1970. [11] His Leprosy Letter is a serial in which he discusses the history, science, myths, legends, facts and stories behind leprosy. [12]

He is a scribbler of verse and is known for extemporaneous singing, leading to the following unpublished rhyme by his son, Andrew.

There is a doctor named Tom

He can dance and sign with aplomb

With the verve of a dervish

He doctors the nervish

When perplexed he bursts into song

Political Life

Swift served as campaign manager for Bob Young’s mayoral campaigns in 1998 and 2002.

Personal Life

He was born the second of four boys to John and Lilian Swift on March 6, 1940, in Brooklyn, NY. Swift married Andrea Veruki in 1964. In 1994 he married Margaret Brown, daughter of Steven W Brown, the founder of Brown and Radiology Associates in Augusta, GA. [13]. She was florist for the Augusta National Golf Club [14] for many years and published A Florist's Walk Down Magnolia Lane: An Augusta Story [15].

Retirement

Swift entered semi-retirement in 2000, continuing to work as a member of the neurology staff at MCG to the present time, where he attends neurology residency clinics.

References

edit
  1. ^ "Neurology".
  2. ^ "Instant Neurological Diagnosis | Oxford Academic".
  3. ^ https://www.aan.com/
  4. ^ https://www.aan.com/about-the-aan/interview-thomas-swift president
  5. ^ https://medicalxpress.com/news/2009-04-neurologists-neurobowl.html Neurobowl
  6. ^ https://societyofclinicalneurologists.weebly.com
  7. ^ https://www.aanem.org/
  8. ^ https://myasthenia.org/
  9. ^ https://www.augusta.edu/mcg/neurology/personnel/2022_summer_issue.pdf
  10. ^ "Virtual Art Exhibit of Dr. Tom Swift". YouTube. 12 January 2022.
  11. ^ https://www.amazon.com/Carville-Mischief-Mayhem-Medicine-Country/dp/B0CPCBCKXV
  12. ^ "Tom Swift | Substack".
  13. ^ "Physician known as visionary".
  14. ^ https://www.masters.com/index.html
  15. ^ https://www.amazon.com/Florists-Walk-Down-Magnolia-Lane/dp/0578174596
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