Dr. Niedermeyer’s Birthday

What do a mountaineer, a prisoner of war, and an accomplished pianist have in common?
Dr. Niedermeyer has been each of these!
When I attended the American Epilepsy Society conference in Baltimore in December, I had the opportunity to visit with Dr. Niedermeyer, thanks to Brian Markley, ASET president-elect, who drove us to his home.  Brian, Lucy Sullivan and I, met his wife, and shared a wonderful dinner with the Niedermeyers, as they extended their gracious hospitality.  Ernst, as he insists we call him, is very cheerful and spry, despite health care issues that he faces.  On January 19^th, Dr. Niedermeyer will celebrate his 92^nd birthday.  He says that he is grateful for each day that he is alive, and looks forward to sharing time with his wife and children.   I encourage all the techs who make up his vast fan club to send him a birthday card.  His mailing address is:

Dr. Ernst Niedermeyer
Pickerskgill Home
Unit #1407
615 Chestnut Ave.
Towson, MD  21204

I have known Dr. Niedermeyer for years, and am in awe of his brilliant mind, and many contributions to the field of neurophysiology.  He has always been an advocate of technologists, and believes that techs have a very high level of knowledge about the procedures we perform, and the clinical correlations we see in our everyday roles, and will tell you how important skilled technologists are to the neurologist!

I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Niedermeyer last year, to prepare an abstract for the 2011 OSET meeting, on the topic of his contributions to neurophysiology.   He sent me many historic photos and an amazing autobiography of his life experience!  He was fulfilling his mandatory service in the German military when World War II started.   Because the German military needed physicians, they sent him to Vienna to study medicine.  In 1944, he was captured by the Allies and sent to the USA as a prisoner of war.  There, he worked in cornfields in the mid-west, until the war ended, when he could return to Vienna to complete medical school.  He immigrated to the USA in 1960, with his family, and became a major contributor to the field of neurology, writing a textbook and 243 publications over a lifetime.

Please join me in wishing Dr. Niedermeyer a Happy Birthday!

A Poem by Faye

A bit of background information about this poem:  I wrote it in 1979 or 1980, when I was really new to the field.  I submitted it to the New England Society of END Technologists to be published in their newsletter.  It got picked up by the ASET newsletter!  I have not thought about this poem for years, until the Mistress of Ceremonies, Jane Peasley, read this poem during the NESET 50^th Anniversary Celebration, three weeks ago.  I have been a member of NESET and ASET for over 30 years now!   You will have to forgive my use of the word “technicians”.  I knew better, even back then, but had to use artistic license to make it all rhyme!  I do want to make the point that we should correct physicians, patients, and staff who call us “technicians”.  We are technologists and proud of it!  You'll notice a few things are outdated now...
 "Omni-Prep" has been replaced by newer products.  How many of you out there have been around long enough to remember this product?  I worked at a Children's Hospital, so I enjoyed getting silly with my patients.  I called this stuff "camel snot" because of the combination of sandy and slimy texture!  And it is no longer a standard practice for techs to administer chloral hydrate.  With today's focus on "patient-cenered care" I am sure that in most labs, parents are invited to stay during their child's EEG, and that is a good thing!

The Life of an EEG Technologist

We are part soothsayers, repairmen, and magicians

What are we? We’re EEG Technicians’!

There are many issues for us to decide,

Standards to follow, rules to abide.

Should we sedate with chloral hydrate?

What to do when the patients are late?

Too many patients, can we squeeze in another?

We better say YES, it’s “so & so’s” brother.

Electrodes applied of silver or gold,

Impedances low, with Omni-prep bold.

Applied with paste or collodian,
An issue more practical than Freudian.

Then what of this patient? Rule out TLE?

She told me today she took LSD.

And, should I tell her physician?

Oh, what a position.

And then the dilemma of parents in the room

I’m sure they think I should be riding a broom.

The doctor comes in at the end of the day,

The records are ready, there’s been no delay. 

It’s all in the life of an EEG Technologist,

Part mother and father, nurse and psychologist.

ASET at the American Epilepsy Society Conference

Brian Markely, Faye Mc Nall and Lucy Sullivan, ASET Booth, AES Conference



I just got back from a trip to Baltimore, to attend the American Epilepsy Society annual conference.  I am always impressed with the magnitude of this meeting, with over 4400 attendees!  It is also a very interesting mix of health care professionals: epileptologists and neurologists, nursing professionals, researchers, and various non-profit organizations with all kinds of connections to epilepsy.   There is a large international presence, and as a result of connections we made at our booth, we will be able to get some of the ASET publications translated into Spanish, which will be a wonderful thing to be able to offer to technologists internationally.

Lucy, and I set up an ASET Exhibit Booth, and Brian Markley, the ASET President elect, kindly helped us staff the booth throughout the weekend.  Can you guess what the most commonly asked question was, at our booth??  It was “How do I find qualified technologists to hire??” !

 I heard tales of positions open for over a year, chronically short-staffed labs, and new epilepsy programs about to open.  We gave out our ASET/ABRET resource informational folder, with the hopes that we could provide some help, and the complete list of Neurodiagnostic Schools, so that these people could contact the schools directly and hopefully hire new graduates.  We are so fortunate to be in a profession with such demand in the future!  The downside is, if we cannot provide the qualified help they are seeking, who will they hire instead of the skilled technologists?  While it is logical to start more neurodiagnostic programs at colleges around the country, this is easier said than done.  It takes years to write propsoals, research the potential market to present to a college Board, get approval from a State Board of Education and receive funding.

If anyone has any ideas about how to solve this staffing crisis, I am listening!  I read an article last week about the decline of popularity of expensive college degrees.  Parents and students are finding themselves burdened with $80,000 in student loans for a four-year degree when the graduate is unable to find work commiserate with the degree he/she holds.  The article predicts an upswing in technical careers, with less costly educations and urgent demand for skilled workers right now.  That means us, folks!  Let's hope that we can add to the ranks of neurodiagnostic technologists in the next few years.  You can also contribute to the education of future technologists by opening your lab to serve as a clinical site.

Your Brain: A User’s Guide

Time magazine has just re-issued a special edition of this publication, “Your Brain: A User’s Guide”.  It will be on display at your local newstand until Jan. 13^th.   I picked up my copy at the local grocery store in rural Maine, so it should not be hard to find.  What a fabulous collection of articles about the brain!  Topics cover what we are just finding out about the brain’s functions, and what we have yet to discover!   Historical perspectives on neuroscience research are included, and new scientific findings.  There are articles on maturation of the brain, what is good about the aging brain, brain disorders, memory, additions and a great graphic article on the stages of sleep.  This does not read like a textbook at all, simply a series of facinating articles.  I highly recommend it!  It’s the kind of information that you can pick up and enjoy absorbing over a coffee break, or a late night read before going to bed.  This would also make a great resource for reading materials for students in neurodiagnostic training programs, especially if students are assigned to review articles.   FYI: You can also order a hardcover version of this book through Amazon.com for $21.94. 

I will be attending the American Epilepsy Society meeting in Baltimore, which begins on December 2^nd.  I look forward to this educational opportunity for me!  As a provider of education in this field, it is essential that I obtain some continuing education myself, so that I will be able to organize programs that are on the cutting edge for ASET meeting attendees.  I am sure to have some new materials for a blog entry when I return to my office, so I will share the AES meeting highlights in a couple of weeks.

11/11/11 11:11 a.m. Epilepsy Awareness

Well, first of all, I did not want to miss the opportunity to make use of this unique date and time!  So, I am using it as an eye catching title for this week’s blog entry.  Now that I have your attention…  November is national Epilepsy Awareness Month!

        I have been thinking about opportunities for community outreach within our profession.  Last Saturday, Nov. 5^th, I attended the 50^th Anniversary Meeting of NESET (the New England Society of Neurodiagnostic Technologists) in downtown Boston.  I had been involved in the planning of the program for this meeting for the past six months.  We decided to include a community service outreach as part of the program.  So, we titled the educational event “Epilepsy Awareness Day”, and included local first responders on our invitation list.  We chose topics that might be of interest to EMTs for the 4 morning lectures, and applied to the local EMT governance organization for CUEs for EMTs who attended.  We offered the morning program free of charge to EMTs.  We included presentations on seizure and non-epileptic event differentiation, SUDEP, and TBI/Post Traumatic Epilepsy.  We were pleased to see EMTs signing up for the session, and had positive feedback from them, regarding the interest and value of the program.  I encourage other regional societies to consider doing the same.  Typically, EMTs can accrue their CEUs in the local community, free of charge, so this was important to our EMT attendees.  We also felt that we were serving our epilepsy patients, by helping first responders understand some of the complications surrounding epilepsy.

ASET has also recently found an opportunity for community outreach.  We were contacted by staff at Dell’s Children’s Hospital in Texas.  There neurodiagnostic lab was working on a project to bring several technologist trainees up from the Caribbean to train at their facility, so that they can provide better neurodiagnostic services back on their home islands.  Funding for the project was provided by the North American Regional Commission, a representative of the International League Against Epilepsy.  Various organizations are involved, to cover educational costs, travel and housing, and physicians from the institution have volunteered their time to assist in the training and education of these technologists.  ASET is pleased to announce that we will play an active part in this outreach program, and will provide some of our on-line EEG courses, for their use, free of charge.

ASET has been involved in community outreach in the past.  At our 2008 annual conference in New Orleans, we hosted an “Epilepsy Awareness Day” to interface with local residents, many of whom lost their connections with their neurologists following Hurricane Katrina.  This was also a rewarding effort, and ASET will continue to seek opportunities to expand our horizons and help others.  I encourage you to do the same, on a personal level, as a volunteer, or donor to a meaningful charity, or as part of a community outreach through your local society.

You-Tube Videos to Promote Career Opportunities in Neurodiagnostics

I have heard many formal discussions and informal conversations about the problem we face in recruiting new technologists, finding potential students to choose this career, and enter our formal training programs. Every week, an H.R. person calls me and says “People in your specialty are impossible to find!  I cannot fill open positions!”   We have all experienced a situation where someone casually asks us “What do you do for a living?”  So, you launch into an explanation of your job title, and what you do every day.  You observe a puzzled look on your listener’s face.  Most people have never even HEARD of our work! 

We all agree that we need publicity!  If we had major funding, we could get a real T.V. ad out there about our profession, but since we don’t have finances to cover that level of expense,  we have put together what we can, for free!

Did you know that there is a free, downloadable Public Service Video about a career in neurodiagnostics right on the ASET website??  This is available to anyone, and is a great resource for anyone who is putting together materials for a career fair.  To access this file, please go to www.aset.org and click on the “On-line Education” button.  On the first page that comes up, you will see a list of free downloads.  There are four options for viewing or downloading the Career Video.  Please look for “ASET PSA” and choose the file you wish to download.

And now, even more exciting, there are a series of You-Tube videos to provide information about various career options in our field!  Dr. Kit, a college professor, has been organizing and collecting a series of short video presentations about all kinds of careers, which he posts on You Tube.  He offered us the opportunity to create informational videos to send to him.  Sara Batson, CNIM R. EEG/EP T. RPSGT; Chief Technologist of the Neurodiagnostics Lab at the Illinois Neurological Institute in Peoria, IL, graciously offered to use her facility, equipment and staff to record these videos.  She has videos on EPs and IONM under production, but some are ready now!  They are posted on You Tube and you can check them out at http://www.drkit.org/health-care-careers/   Please share this link with your friends, and tell everyone you know that Neurodiagnostics is now on You Tube! Way to go, Sara, Thank You!

Brain Games – Educational Series on the National Geographic Channel

On October 9^th, the National Geographic Channel broadcast a series of three documentaries about brain function, and the ways in which the brain can be fooled by its own sensory perception.  The information was fascinating, and the demonstrations and examples were really great!  There were many “tests” that viewers could take, while watching the show, that will prove exactly how the brain does not always process information correctly.  How could I miss a giant rabbit in the back of a crowd?? But I did!  In addition, they included some great graphics of Neuroanatomy, to explain various cognitive functions.  I would highly recommend this series just for general interest, but especially to Program Directors, who are looking for fascinating assignments for their students, to keep their interest!  The series is available for viewing via the National Geographic Channel website, and probably on-demand, depending upon your cable provider.  At the website, you can also find some interactive programs, to test memory, and show where various functions are controlled within the brain.  The three episodes covered visual and auditory processing; focus and attention; and memory.  Great stuff!  http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/brain-games/  The picture below is on the National Geographic website, an example of  artistic visual representation of the brain.