2005 Janet Travell Award

REVIEW OF MR. FERNANDEZ’S PROJECT
[presented to the IMS by Preceptor Robert D. Gerwin, MD]

Title: MYOFASCIAL TRIGGER POINTS IN CHRONIC TENSION TYPE HEADACHE

Mr. Fernández completed his one month of International MYOPAIN Society-sponsored fellowship in July of 2005. His stay was productive. Below are the goals he accomplished:

• He completed the four Johns Hopkins Internal Review Board [IRB]-related internet-based courses that have to do with consent, confidentiality, etc., that are required of co-investigators submitting study protocols for IRB approval at Hopkins and at my local hospital IRB.
• We reviewed, revised and completed one manuscript that he had asked me to work on with him [I will not be a co-author on the paper]. This required a good bit of back-and-forth, including reviewing his examination technique.
• We worked together on the concept of superior oblique muscle/troclear headache, and consulted a neuro-opthalmologist about some of the issues raised.
• Mr. Fernández met for several hours with Dr. Jay Shah at National Institutes of Health, and spent three days with Dr. David Simons in Georgia.
• We compared our examination techniques until we were certain that we were examining muscle in like manner, to assure inter-examiner reliability, in order to collaborate on studies together.
• We prepared three research protocols that I will submit here to IRB committees for approval, and he will submit in Madrid, so that we can do three collaborative studies on the nature of myofascial pain in headache.