Pioneering the Practice of Medicine
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Pioneering the Practice of Medicine: Dr. Warren Macaulay
Even within group practice, MeritCare specialists can pursue unique areas of interest. Consider the achievement of Dr. Warren Macaulay. A dermatologist at MeritCare for 36 years, Dr. Macaulay named, described and defended lymphomatoid papulosis (LyP), a rare skin disease that continues to be studied today.
For years, Dr. Macaulay had been mystified by a rare occurrence: a patient with skin lesions that looked harmless and seemed to heal themselves, but when tested in the laboratory, the lesions appeared to be cancerous. In his words, "a self-healing rhythmical paradoxical eruption, histologically malignant but clinically benign."
Though Dr. Macaulay was convinced this was a disease unto itself, many thought it was a variation of Mucha-Habermann disease. "There was a lot of disbelief and skepticism at first," said Dr. Macaulay, referring to reactions to his groundbreaking article published in 1968 in the Archives of Dermatology. But he received support, too, including correspondence from doctors all over the world who reported similar cases.
Dr. Macaulay later established a fund at MeritCare Foundation, with philanthropists and the Macaculay family donating money for LyP research. The fund provided a grant in 2000 to Dr. Werner Kempf from the Swiss National Institute of Health who was doing LyP research at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. In 2006 a grant was given to Beth Israel Hospital, which is a partner of Harvard Medical School, for research into LyP being conducted by Dr. Marshall Kadin, who also maintains a registry of all LyP diagnosed patients in the world.
Today, LyP is universally recognized by dermatologists. In addition, the disease continues to draw the interest of research scientists, particularly cancer researchers. Articles about LyP often refer to Dr. Macaulay's pioneering work and his 1968 article.