Donald R. McNeal,
PhD
Born: Lexington, KY on March 27,
1938
While studying control theory at the
University of Michigan, I read the book Cybernetics: Control and
Communication in the Animal and the Machine by Norbert Weiner. This sparked
my interest in applying what I was learning to applications within the human
body. But it was not until several years later that I had the opportunity to do
so. As I was completing a PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University,
a former fraternity brother, who had recently completed an internship in
Orthopedic Surgery at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, told me about the
engineering work going on there. Through him, I was invited by Dr. Vernon
Nickel, then Medical Director at the hospital, to come down for a visit. After
talking for awhile in his office, he took me on a tour of the hospital. We
entered one of the hospital rooms, and he introduced me to a patient lying in
bed. I stuck out my hand and immediately realized I had done the wrong thing.
As I lamely pulled my hand back, Dr. Nickel explained that the patient had
recently broken his neck while riding a motorcycle. After chatting a bit, Dr.
Nickel noticed that I was looking a little pale, so he suggested that we move
on. After leaving the room, he got me a drink of water and asked if I needed to
sit down. Despite this inauspicious introduction to the world of
rehabilitation, he offered me a job at Rancho and I took it. Before I moved my
family south, I decided I needed a bit more preparation and signed up for the
introductory course in Anatomy and Physiology at Foothill Community
College!
Armed with my newfound knowledge, I reported
for work in February 1968. Dr. Nickel instructed me to talk with staff members
and then let him know what I wanted to do. One of the orthopedic surgeons, Dr.
Vert Mooney, told me about some work done by Franjo Gracinin in which he
electrically stimulated muscles during walking to correct footdrop in people
with stroke. Dr. Mooney said patients didn't like the sensation and they had
trouble correctly placing the electrodes, but if we could develop an
implantable stimulator it might be a successful way to treat footdrop. I
thought this sounded interesting and decided that was what I wanted to do. Two
years later, with a lot of help from Medtronic Corporation, we surgically
implanted a device called the NeuroMuscular Assist in our first stroke
patient-the first neuromuscular stimulator implanted in a human in the United
States. Clinical trials of the NeuroMuscular Assist demonstrated the
feasibility of long-term stimulation of peripheral nerve with implanted
hardware. I consider the development and testing of the NMA to be one of my
greatest contributions to the field of Rehabilitation Engineering. Two others
would be the development of an analytical model for nerve stimulation that has
become the foundation for much of the theoretical work done during the past
thirty years and founding Project Threshold in 1978, a clinical program that
provided rehabilitation engineering services to thousands of clients in
California.
I was a founding member of RESNA and became
its third President in 1981. At that time you didn't campaign to become
president; you just had to be the first who couldn't say no when asked. Jim
Reswick, who I worked for at Rancho for many years, was the one who asked.
During my one-year tenure, we started the newsletter and held the first annual
RESNA conference that was organized and managed within the association. I have
always considered it to be a great honor to have been a RESNA President. Later,
I served on the Board of Directors and chaired the Meetings Committee for many
years. Even though I have never considered myself to be a "joiner" I thoroughly
enjoyed my years of involvement with RESNA, and I know that I benefited greatly
from being part of the organization. I sincerely believe that RESNA has played
a vital role in growing and shaping the field of Rehabilitation Engineering and
expect that it will continue to do so for many, many years.
I have always considered it to be a great
honor to have been a RESNA President. |