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Why I Honor Oscar Marin.

My main reason for publishing this special issue of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology about Dr Oscar Marin is to show other generations a model of an inspiring teacher and collaborator. There are, of course, many other reasons: To highlight some new research. To give historical background to developments that are often taken for granted. To honor Oscar’s memory. And in my case, to acknowledge how pivotal he was to my development, and to “pay forward” some of the debt that I owe him. My overwhelming reason for devoting an issue of the journal to Oscar is to prove by example—a single case study, if you will—how someone can contribute mightily to science and to individual careers even by following what some might consider a very nonstandard route, with very nonstandard people. I could even argue that this is what is needed to break free from the bounds of the scientific paradigms of the moment, and from the career channels that have been grooved by prior forces. But I’ll let the many wonderful storytellers in this issue make that case for me. In this article I offer some of my own remembrances, which may or may not comport with the actual historical facts. MY YEARS WITH OSCAR MARIN My first contact with Oscar was in the spring of 1972, when I was a medical student at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Oscar was a member of the Jefferson faculty, but was based at the Wilmington Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware. I had been interested in the mind and brain since high school. While in medical school, I subscribed to Psychological Review. I knew that neurology and psychiatry were the medical disciplines that seemed to deal with the mind and brain, and I wanted guidance on which direction to pursue. So that spring I called Oscar to ask for career advice. He told me to come down to Wilmington that summer and join him for a student elective. This first rotation on a neurology service proved to be fascinating, thanks to Oscar and the area neurologists in private practice, especially Dr Thomas Vates Jr. In 1973, Oscar moved to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, and became Chief of the Neurology Service at Baltimore City Hospitals. He encouraged me to apply to Johns Hopkins for a neurology residency. When I interviewed for the Hopkins program, which Dr Guy McKhann had founded and was directing, I was immensely impressed by its openness, pioneering work, and mix of clinical and research efforts. Thankfully, I matched with Hopkins, so that’s where I went after finishing my internship. I next worked with Oscar in 1974, when I was in the first year of the neurology residency at Hopkins and did a rotation with him at Baltimore City Hospitals. In the summer of 1975, as a newly minted second-year resident, I returned to Baltimore City Hospitals, this time as chief resident. In July 1977, I joined the Johns Hopkins faculty and the staff at Baltimore City Hospitals, spending the next 2 years as Oscar’s Deputy Chief. In 1979, Oscar left Johns Hopkins for Portland, Oregon. After that, we had only intermittent contact.