GUEST EDITOR IN CHIEF
Jill Farmer, DO, MPH, is an assistant professor of neurology at Drexel University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and recently founded Boro Neurology, a movement disorder and lifestyle medicine practice in Hopewell, NJ. Her clinical interests include the medical and surgical management of Parkinson disease (PD), botulinum toxin injections for dystonia and spasticity, and functional movement disorders. Her research interests include telemedicine, emotional and environmental effects on disease, continuous infusion therapies, and wearable devices.
Farmer developed the Delaware Valley Regional Movement Disorder Meeting, serves in various consultant and advisory roles, and is coadministrator for the Women Neurologist Group, which brings together an international group of more than 4000 women neurologists from residency through retirement. She is also a past President of the Philadelphia Neurological Society, being the only president to serve 2 consecutive terms, and 1 of only a handful of women to serve in the role in its 140-year history.
I WAS HONORED TO BE ASKED to guest edit this issue of NeurologyLive®. We know that many months and days have celebratory themes, and March is no exception. Many of our articles in this issue focus on multiple sclerosis, as March is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month. Additionally, March 26 is also highlighted as Purple Day for epilepsy awareness, and we round out the month with National Doctors’ Day on March 30.
I would like to take this opportunity to focus on that last day of awareness I mentioned: National Doctors’ Day. It is an honorable recognition, but celebrating those who choose every day to put others before themselves is something that should not be isolated to a single 24-hour period. It is no secret that burnout is high and morale is low in the medical community across the spectrum, affecting all of us who are a part of the medical machine.
I wanted to personally take this opportunity to say, I see you and understand. There are not enough hours in the day to see patients and document these interactions in a way that insurance demands, but yet is not clinically useful. You are pulled in every direction at work and outside of it. Not only do you feel underappreciated, but disrespected—and it stinks. Especially so considering the number of years you’ve trained, the hours you’ve sacrificed, and the debt you’ve accrued. I see you, and I sit with that with you.
I hope that small acts, like a compendium of the most up-to-date neurological news, can take some of the burden of keeping up, and put information in your hands that is practical and clinically useful. I would love to inspire you and remind you of why you followed this calling—to help others and care for them in their time of need. Reading through advancements in care and culture in medicine, at your own pace, hopefully fills your cup so that you can continue to care for others. It is our goal to provide you with information you will digest to educate a patient that will impact them and change their clinical course in a positive way. It’s those interactions that sustain us and keep us going.
It’s hard to be in medicine at the moment, and one day’s recognition is not enough. As your peer, I honor my fellow physicians today and every day.
Stay strong!
Jill Farmer, DO, MPH
FEATURES IN THIS ISSUE
EPILEPSY
Lifting Barriers to Equitable Care in Epilepsy
By Carla LoPinto-Khoury, MD, FAES
GENERAL NEUROLOGY
Health Care Avoidance and Neurological Needs in Transgender and Gender-Diverse Patients
By Gwen Zeigler, DO
MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS
Navigating Treatment Decision-Making in Multiple Sclerosis
By Aparna M. Prabhu, MD, MRCP, and Shikhar Khurana, MD
