David S. Campion, M.D.
I
practice in an unusual branch of medicine called electro diagnostic
medicine usually shortened to EDX. I love this specialty because it combines two
parts of medicine that I have always wanted to practice: I get to chat with my
patients, and at the same time use my wide experience of medical science to help
them get information about their problems that will help them and their doctors
make good decisions.
I trained in New Zealand and completed degrees in Medicine, Biophysics and Pharmacology. In1965 the United States National Institute of Health gave me a Research Fellowship and I trained in Dallas at Southwestern Medical School in Internal Medicine and Nephrology. My research was exciting and I was recruited to UCLA where I trained in Muscle Disorders and ran the Muscular Dystrophy Clinic. I wanted to have a complete Investigative Unit and I particularly needed to be able to study the real functioning of the nerves and muscles. Electrical Diagnostic Medicine was in 1970 being rapidly developed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and I trained there, returning to be Director of EDX at UCLA.
Now after thirty-five years and 125,000 patients I am pretty competent, and I truly love my work. (See BIO)
This web site is to introduce you to this special branch of medicine. I could have made it much simpler but time and again I have been impressed with my patient’s desire for scientific, accurate and complete explanations. Anyhow if I meet you I will be happy to explain the procedures more simply.
Physicians who specialize in Electrodiagnostic (EDX) medicine are extensively trained in the normal function of nerves and muscles and in recognizing the changes in damaged or diseased nerves and muscles.
Patients are referred by neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, hand surgeons and other physicians for studies that help in the diagnosis of many conditions where nerve damage or muscle disease is suspected. Common diagnoses explored are carpal tunnel syndrome, sciatica and other disc problems, ulnar nerve damage, peripheral neuropathy – such as diabetic neuropathy - and a wide variety of neuromuscular disorders such as myosits – inflammation of muscles- muscular dystrophies, ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and more frequently now neuropathies that are side effects of powerful medications.(Details of many of these conditions are described in a paper I wrote at the invitation of the American Association of Hand Surgeons)
The great advantage of these EDX studies is their Objectivity. A final
diagnosis is made based on the Clinical Examination – history and physical –
performed by the referring physician, radiological studies that look at the
shape of things and the EDX studies that determine the Function of the nerves
and muscles.
EDX is made of two separate studies – Nerve conduction velocities (NCV) and Electromyography (EMG) and in this web page these two separate examinations are described.
The information given here has been developed largely on the basis of the many questions asked by patients over the years and is a fairly complete overview of EDX for the inquiring mind.