MORE GOOD NEWS; if you need a doc, check for your state here!

[Heiferly]

I knew I was having a good day when I got to the pharmacy, all TEN of my rxs were correctly filled and ready when I arrived at the time they'd been promised AND they started ringing up as $0.00, meaning I'd finally hit "catastrophic coverage" for the year (all my pals on Medicare who are on a LOT of meds know what I mean ... oh, lovely, lovely catastrophic coverage).  But this really is my lucky day:  I'm finding a GOLDMINE of good news online today.


Looking for a doctor in/near Ohio, Mississippi, Texas, North Carolina, New York, or Maryland?  This could be your lucky day!!!


If you look here on the United Council for Neurologic Subspecialties Website, starting in 2009, they have published a list of their autonomic subspecialty diplomates!  Do I hear the sound of phones ringing off the hook begging for new appointments??  Presumably these are docs who actually know our field; you can download pdfs with their curriculum requirements etc. on the UCNS website as well if you want an idea of what their diploma represents.  Many of the links on their site immediately begin downloads of pdf files to your computer, so be aware of that (you'll see "pdf" in parentheses in the text of such links).

Note that only in 2009 does autonomic start making the list.  (When you click autonomic, you'll trigger a pdf download of the list I'm about to copy and paste below so if you just want to read it here you can.)  You may want to surf around their site a bit though:

http://www.ucns.org/go/subspecialty/diplomates


I'm going ahead and googling these to save everyone time and effort, so you won't find this contact info on their published pdf; I added it myself.  If any of it is incorrect, blame the internet, not me.  :-p

Gisela G. Chelimsky, MD, Shaker Heights, OH
http://maps.google.com/places/us/oh/cleveland/euclid-ave/11100/-chelimsky-gisela-g-md?gl=us

Jose P. Fernandez, MD, Hattiesburg, MS
http://maps.google.com/places/us/ms/hattiesburg/s-28th-ave/415/-fernandez-jose-p-md?gl=us

Yadollah Harati, MD, Houston, TX
http://maps.google.com/places/us/tx/houston/fannin-st/6550/-harati-yadollah-md?gl=us

Caroline Klein, MD, Chapel Hill, NC
http://maps.google.com/places/us/nc/27514/chapel-hill/manning-dr/101/-unc-department-of-neurology-klein-caroline-md?gl=us

Lindsey L. Lair, MD, New York, NY
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=1277435942038825901&q=Lindsey+L.+Lair,+MD,+New+York,+NY&hl=en&cd=2&ei=josWTPDyHomUyAStqZX1BA&sig2=gHpcFFLXOXnjdS6CjQ2OKw&dtab=0&sll=40.744993,-73.982228&sspn=0.092686,0.056988&ie=UTF8&ll=40.83797,-74.147072&spn=0,0&t=h&z=12&iwloc=B

Mian Li, MD, Potomac, MD
http://maps.google.com/places/us/dc/washington/irving-st-nw/50/-mian-li-md?gl=us

Vettaikorumakankav V. Vedanarayanan, MD, Jackson, MS
http://maps.google.com/places/us/ms/jackson/n-state-st/2500/-vedanarayanan-vettakikoru-md?gl=us



More info about the certification and accreditation:

http://www.ucns.org/go/subspecialty/autonomic/certification

http://www.ucns.org/go/subspecialty/autonomic/accreditation



Happy doctor hunting, everyone!!  The name of the Ohio doc looks quite familiar to me—I think one of our pediatric forum members may already be a patient of that doctor is my memory isn't goofy.  I'd love to hear from anyone else if there's any anecdotal information out there on any of the other docs on this list.  At any rate, I hope this helps someone.  I know we always have at least a few people around at any given point in time who are looking for a "dysauto doc."

Hugs all around.  Alright, I better get my tokhes back in bed before someone finds out I've spent so long upright and made all my vitals worse!  Don't want to get ratted out to my nurse!!  (Bedrest is just so BORING sometimes, and this is such an exhilarating breakthrough for me!  I hope I don't sound like a nutcase.  I've just put so much time and energy into helping people all over the country (and sometimes the world) find doctors and diagnostic clinics and to suddenly happen upon major finds like this all at once just really means a LOT to me.  It's like looking for a needle in a haystack sometimes so I feel kind of like I conquered something huge today.  Sorry, I'm blabbering.  I'll get back in bed before I hurt myself, LOL.)  HUGS!!!!  :-D  -Heiferly.

[enzymelover]

  Yeah, I noticed that about the ApexMD list. Very few docs who have any real expertise in AD, and some not at all. But, it's a place to start looking, I guess.

Thanks for all your detective work!

[Heiferly]

The thing that I really like about this list is that these doctors are actually accredited in the field and that's how they got on the list.  Many of the other (longer) lists I've seen out there have been problematic in that they're self-reporting lists, meaning that docs list their own names.  Then the problem is run into that doctors add their name to the list who really *don't* have much expertise in autonomic disorders at all, some of whom have actually proven to be very far off the mark in terms of being up-to-speed with current practice standards in diagnosing and treating autonomic disorders.  This makes these lists almost useless because then we have to go through and check the names one by one and try to find patients who have seen the docs in question and/or cross reference the names with publications in peer-reviewed medical journals (which is an imperfect metric itself because it can eliminate excellent doctors who just have no interest in research/publication).

One caveat:  the fact that these doctors are trained and certified in the ANS subspecialty does not mean that they necessarily work at a facility with access to a full autonomic diagnostic clinic.

[enzymelover]

That's weird. I was just looking at this list of names, and many more, last night, on a site called ApexMD, under Autonomic Nervous System Diseases. I recognized Dr. Low's name, and Dr. Chelimsky. There were a couple of possibilities around San Francisco for me to check out.

I feel as if help is finally coming for those of us who aren't in the midwest!

[CHRISTYDRAKE]

Gisela Chelimsky is the Peds. Gastro that my son sees at University Hospital in Cleveland.  I have only good things to say about her.  She is very compassionate and not only diagnoses but treats.  We also see her husband, Thomas Chelimsky a neuro.

She told me she was chronically ill as a child and doctors weren't real helpful, so she knows where we are coming from.  

Christy