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JeromeWaye

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Jerome Waye is a clinical professor of Medicine at the Mount Sinai-NYU Health Center. He is chief of gastrointestinal endoscopy at Mount Sinai Hospital and also at Lenox Hill Hospital, both in New York City. Internship, residency in medicine, and fellowship in gastroenterology at Mount Sinai Hospital followed cum laude graduation from Boston University Medical Center. Undergraduate education was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been a pioneer in the development of colonoscopy techniques.

He has been president of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the American College of Gastroenterology, and is currently Treasurer and Chairman of the Education Committee of OMED, the World Organization of Digestive Endoscopy. He serves on the editorial board of several journals, and is international editor of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.

Although involved in several research projects, his current interest is the development of new techniques and new instrumentation in the field of gastrointestinal endoscopy.

What made you decide to become a gastroenterologist?

Epigastric distress in medical school gave me an introduction to the field of gastroenterology and radiology, both of which were unable to decide whether I had dyspepsia or a duodenal ulcer. I thought that there had to be a better way of making GI diagnoses, and have pursued those avenues throughout my professional life.

Who was the teacher you admired the most?

Professor Norbert Weiner, a noted mathematician who was recruited to teach first-year calculus to my freshman class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when the assigned teacher became ill. Professor Weiner was the most brilliant and gifted educator that I have ever known. He could solve an analytical problem using five different pathways in his mind, and would do so within one minute while paused at the blackboard when a student challenged his answer.

Which research paper (by another person) influenced you the most?

At a Digestive Disease Week conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Professors Provenzale and Revignas presented their work on colonoscopy using a pulley system on a previously ingested cable to drag a fiberoptic gastroscope up into the colon for inspection. They subsequently wrote the paper 'La colonoscopia total transanale mediante una metodica original' (Rass Med Sarda 1966; 69: 149). As a member of the audience, I was struck by the possibilities of colonic intubation without such a cumbersome device, and worked to develop instruments and techniques that would permit 'freehand' colonic intubation.

What is the most important fact that you have discovered?

That intubation with the colonoscope is made considerably easier whenever the sigmoid loop is removed by first withdrawing the instrument prior to further intubation.

What is your unfulfilled ambition?

To write a new textbook of colonoscopy and incorporate all the changes and advances that have taken place since the first book on colonoscopy by Hunt and Waye in 1981.

How do you relax?

I practice magic, which I have been requested to demonstrate all over the world at the various lectures, conferences, and medical events that I attend.

What is your favorite sport?

Crew. While an undergraduate student at MIT, I was coxswain of the crew team for 4 years. Our team eventually won our event at the Royal Henley Regatta after out-rowing all of the university crews in the United States. Our MIT crew returned to the Henley Royal Regatta in June 2000 and rowed up the course, demonstrating great finesse and endurance, as well as physical fitness and prowess.

What is your best place in the world?

A weekend home in New Jersey, one hour away from New York, where I travel each weekend to escape the hustle and bustle of New York City. There I relax, putter around, and never put on a necktie.

What car do you drive?

In New York City I use taxicabs, since parking is impossible and taxis are so easy to get, except when it is raining.

What is your best electronic 'toy'?

Computers. I love to play, rearrange photographs, do digital editing, and just have fun.

What book are you reading at the moment?

Practice of Therapeutic Endoscopy, second edition, edited by Tytgat, Classen, Waye and Nakazawa.

Why did you get in involved in GastroHep.com?

A telephone call, fax and e-mail from Peter Cotton, who extolled the benefits of this new and exciting website, an offer to which I could not say no.