VIDEO: 36 years of ‘What’s Your Diagnosis?’ with James H. Brien, DO, FAAP
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ORLANDO — It started with a letter.
Thirty-six years ago, James H. Brien, DO, FAAP, sat down to write a congratulatory note to the chief medical editor of a new publication devoted to reporting on emerging news and research in the field of infectious diseases.
Theodore C. Eickhoff, MD, then the medical editor of Infectious Disease News, replied with an idea.
“He wrote back and asked, ‘Would you mind writing a column for us?’” Brien, now retired from pediatric infectious diseases care at McLane Children’s Hospital in Temple, Texas, told Healio during the AAP National Conference & Exhibition, where he was honored with an award for his lifetime contribution in infectious diseases.
Knowing Brien’s interest in medical photography and expertise in infectious diseases, Eickhoff suggested that Brien combine the two in a monthly column that presented readers with images and clinical details of a case, then tested their diagnostic acumen with a multiple-choice question to solve it. Eickhoff had a name for the column, too: “What’s Your Diagnosis?”
Brien, who was still in the Army at the time, agreed to write the column, alternating between adult and pediatric cases. After the launch of Infectious Diseases in Children a short time later, the column ran in both publications until 2002, according to a detailed accounting of the articles provided by Brien.
Since 1998, the column has focused solely on pediatric cases, with Brien at the helm except for two periods in the 1990s when he was deployed to the Gulf War (1990-1991) and to the office of the Army surgeon general at the Pentagon (1995-1997). The column is still published every month by Healio.
The correct answer to the case presented in Brien’s first column, published in December 1988, was congenital toxoplasmosis. Brien’s latest column — the 484th in the series, according to his own accounting — involves a teen girl who was admitted to the hospital with a painful, swollen lip. Can you solve the case?
Before you give it a try, check out the above video. We caught up with Brien at the AAP conference to ask him what makes a good case for “What’s Your Diagnosis?” and whether writing the column helped him in clinical practice.
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