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 O'Byrne uses a stethoscope and an Aerochamber to treat himself, in this double-exposed photo |
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| Physician, Heal Thyself
Detachment, viewed as a virtue among scientists, often feels unnatural to medical practitioners, who see human involvement as central to the healing art. For those who have themselves been afflicted with disease or observed it in a loved one, the experience can become a driving force in their search for a cure. Here are five whose close encounters with illness have produced important contributions to medical science: BY LEON JAROFF PAUL O'BYRNE: Fighting asthma by inducing episodes in himself Paul O'Byrne was a sickly child. He often had trouble breathing and woke frequently at night, coughing and wheezing. No medication or other treatment seemed to help, and when O'Byrne was six a Dublin doctor explained to his parents that, for some unknown reason, cold, damp climates worsened the child's asthma. He advised them to leave Ireland for a dryer, warmer place. The change worked. Paul's family moved to Rhodesia, where he regained his health. Later he attended medical school in Ireland, and, motivated by his childhood illness, became a pulmonologist and a leading asthma expert. "I wish I could speak to that Dublin physician now. He had great insight," says O'Byrne, who has learned that his early asthma attacks were allergic reactions to dust mites, which thrive in damp conditions. Today, as head of the Division of Respirology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., O'Byrne, 46, works in a most unusual way to develop treatments for allergy-related asthma. In most of his studies, he himself is a test subject, periodically doing "challenges"--inhaling allergens to give himself short episodes of asthma. He has even examined his own bone marrow and tissue biopsied from his airways and lungs. "I'm a good subject," he says, "because I'm on time, and I do the test properly." O'Byrne was shocked when he first viewed his airway tissue. It was "very abnormal, with a lot of scarring," and convinced him that "having a severe childhood disease and not treating it can change the airway forever." He believes that early treatment, particularly with inhaled steroids, outweighs the risk of side effects for children with recurrent asthma. Discovering how those steroids work and finding which allergens inflame the airways of asthmatics are the goals of O'Byrne and his team of 15 researchers at McMaster. In their studies, O'Byrne will continue to be a test subject. "I wouldn't have learned the things I have about the disease," he says, "if I weren't looking at my own airways, my own cells, my own lungs." --Reported by Nicole Nolan/Toronto
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