Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Armando Filomeno, MD
[Former Chief Resident, 1970-71]

Armando Filomeno came to Rochester from Lima, Peru on the advice of the founding dean of his medical school, Dr. Alberto Hurtado, who had been at the URMC some 35 years earlier. Now in private neurological practice at Instituto Medico Miraflores in Lima, Dr. Filomeno specializes in pediatric neuropsychiatry, seeing mostly patients with AD/HD, Tourette syndrome, and autistic spectrum disorders.

“An important part of my present activity,” he writes, “is as medical advisor to the Peruvian Association for Attention Deficit (APDA}, where I am responsible for the scientific contents of its website and newsletter.” Dr. Filomeno is also medical advisor to the Tourette Syndrome Association of Peru, neurological advisor to the Peruvian Association of Families with Asperger Syndrome, and a member of the professional advisory board of the AD/HD Global Network. A minor part of his time, he says, is spent teaching at his medical school at Cayetano Heredia University.

Dr. Filomeno’s recently published handbook for families dealing with AD/HD: El Nino con Deficit de Atencion o Hiperactividad: Como Pasar del Fracaso al Exito, opens with a foreword by Dr. Robert Joynt.

“At Strong Memorial, I was very fortunate to work under Dr. Joynt and Dr. Fred Horner,” he says. “When I finished my neurology residency, Dr. Horner convinced me to stay for an extra year in Pediatric Neurology, and he arranged for me to spend the following year at Johns Hopkins as a fellow in neuromuscular diseases. Upon returning to Lima, I became the first pediatric neurologist at Cayetano Heredia Hospital, where I taught fulltime for ten years.”

Thirteen years ago Dr. Filomeno became the founding medical advisor of the Tourette Syndrome Association of Peru. He was responsible for the academic program of the 2002 International Tourette Syndrome Course and Oliver Sacks’ 2006 seminar on Tourette and Asperger Syndromes.

Dr. Filomeno’s Rochester connection has been strengthened in recent years by contacts with colleagues at professional meetings in Washington, Cancun, and Nashville, where, he writes, he has talked with visiting lecturers who studied or trained in Rochester. They have exchanged fond memories of “Strong Memorial Hospital, the Department of Neurology and its illustrious founding chief, the School of Medicine, the Eastman School of Music with its Sunday students recitals (free admission, of course), and Rochester’s arctic winters.”

Gratitude to his Rochester mentors is apparent throughout Dr. Filomeno’s long-distance message. “Dr. Joynt,” he says, “is the best clinical neurologist I have ever met, always ready to share his knowledge, to give needed advice, and to make a witty comment. Dr. Horner used to do the best pediatric neurological examination I have ever seen, just with the aid of a wooden tongue depressor.”

Over the years, as their former chief resident has worked to improve the care of children with neurological and neuropsychiatric problems, he has introduced a generation of young Peruvian neurologists to the lessons he learned in Rochester.

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Reproducción de las páginas 116 y 117 (Child Neurology Unit History) de:
University of Rochester Medical Center. Neurology. 40th Anniversary Celebration. October 4-6, 2007. History of the Department.
(Artículo escrito por Nancy Bolger, sobre la base de una entrevista por correo electrónico).