Rich O'Brien, Lorna Role and Rich Hume were three physiologists. Rich and Lorna came to Washington University with me from Harvard. Hume was a new arrival, but they were all interested in electrophysiology and did great work, separate and together. Lorna worked on ciliary ganglion neurons, which were cholinergic cells which respond to the acetylcholine, nicotinic responses. Rich Hume branched off and studied glutamate.

Rich [O'Brien] was and is an extraordinary character. He was a Harvard undergraduate, a Boston Irishman who was irreverent. Who became friends with the man who subsequently became chairman of psychiatry at Washington University. Took him out to celebrate one night and brought him home and dropped him off at his doorstep, totally drunk. His wife was very upset, at least that's the story I heard.

But Rich was brilliant, and Rich now is chairman of neurology at Duke. He was at Hopkins for many years. He went from Harvard to me, back to Mass General, then to Hopkins. There's a very big public hospital, Baltimore City Hospital, which was his meat and potatoes, and he became director of neurology there. Continued in electrophysiology, but it was really his clinical acumen. And students and house staff worshiped him because he's so thoughtful and so talented clinically. You can see him on the web, giving a short talk about the importance of clinical neurology and how he practices it.