CNS Neurology Residents Visit Former Faculty Member Dr. George Ebers

By David Kim and Adrian Budhram; Photography by David Kim

Dr. EbersDr. George C. Ebers is a world-renowned neurologist and researcher in multiple sclerosis. After attending medical school at the University of Toronto, he trained at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, and practiced briefly in family medicine in Strathroy, Ontario. He completed a residency in neurology at Cornell Medical Center in New York before coming to London, Ontario as a professor in the Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences at the University of Western Ontario. He later moved to Oxford University in 1999 as professor of neurology. Currently retired, he resides in Bayfield, Ontario.

Dr. Ebers was kind enough to invite the writers into his home for a visit and a chat about his experiences at the University of Western Ontario and his neurological career. We moved up to his library, with an extensive collection of rare and valuable items that he has been carefully collecting since he was a medical student. The rarest item in his collection is a work by Thomas Syndenham containing the description of the chorea that bears his name. He stated the most important work was his copy of Edward Jenner’s An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae from 1798. It was incredible to behold, especially as Dr. Ebers’s copy was in better condition and free of markings in the margins that are seen in some archival scans online. He also holds a special interest in the personal medical collections of notable physicians, and we were able to see Dr. Henri Meige’s personal copy of Oeuvres Complètes de J. M. Charcot (pictured below). Each item in his collection contains stories of his travels and encounters. His edition of Cruveilhier’s Atlas of the descriptive anatomy of the human body (pictured below), remarkably in its original binding, was exceptionally preserved when Dr. Ebers encountered it in a monastery in Europe.

Adrian looking through Dr. Ebers’s extensive medical collection — Cruveilhier’s Atlas.

Adrian looking through Dr. Ebers’s extensive medical collection — Cruveilhier’s Atlas.

He told us about his past, and how moving from his family medicine practice in Strathroy to his neurology residency in Manhattan was a large culture shock. Before becoming a renowned figure in academic medicine, Dr. Ebers had encountered his own giants as well. He trained in New York under Dr. Fred Plum and Dr. Jerome Posner; he was neighbors in Toronto with Dr. J. Clifford Richardson (of Steele-Richardson-Olszewski syndrome, or progressive supranuclear palsy); he was once interviewed by Dr. Raymond Adams and Dr. C. Miller Fisher; and he eventually joined Dr. Henry Barnett at University Hospital in London, Ontario, in a department he fondly called “the greatest neurology department on the planet”. Dr. Ebers recalled that Dr. Barnett’s passion was to foster growth in others to succeed more than himself; it was this spirit of generosity that drove the department to its collective successes.

Dr. Henri Meige’s personal copy of Oeuvres Complètes de J. M. Charcot

Dr. Henri Meige’s personal copy of Oeuvres Complètes de J. M. Charcot

He was drawn to multiple sclerosis because of a multitude of factors, including one patient in the Bronx who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis who left a deep, lasting impression on him. He also chose multiple sclerosis because of its intellectual aspect: it seemed like an interesting puzzle in neurology still left to be solved. He jokingly remarked that initially, he felt it would take a couple of weekends to figure out, which turned out to not be the case.

Dr. Ebers was the principle investigator of the landmark study for interferon-beta as the treatment of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, and continually advocated for additional investigations of clinically relevant outcomes, including time to disability data. When giving advice for our own research careers, he told us to have the academic patience of having multiple projects we are passionate about “on-the-go”, even though some of them can take ten to fifteen years to mature. With his colleagues, he helped establish one of the largest databases in the world of multiple sclerosis-related epidemiological and environmental data known as the Canadian Collaborative Project on Genetic Susceptibility to Multiple Sclerosis. This work led to significant contributions to our understanding on the natural history of multiple sclerosis as well as potential environmental factors.

Dutch windmillWe then ventured for a walk outside, where he showed us a Dutch windmill (pictured) on his property that he was fully restoring (including his scale model). It will eventually include a power generator to hopefully leave his farm self-sufficient. After looking at his extensive woodworking workshop, we asked him if he could even consider himself retired! After David took some portrait photographs in the workshop (pictured above), we said our goodbyes (for now). Thank you Dr. Ebers for your generosity in welcoming us into your home!