FOND DU LAC — An abandoned railroad bed cuts through the rural, wooded acreage that Dr. Darold Treffert calls home. The tracks were to connect the area with the Mississippi River in the 1860s, but resources were exhausted before the project got that far.
A more complex and global web of connections has long thrived indoors, where the psychiatrist’s lifetime study of one rare condition has brought together patients, caregivers, researchers, media and filmmakers from as far away as Indonesia and Israel.
Treffert, clinical professor in the UW psychiatry department and a former Wisconsin Medical Society president, is trying to decide which institute of higher education should house the materials of his home office work. He also would like a center for excellence established, to encourage multidisciplinary research and be a clearinghouse for public information.