Mutual respect, different perspectives are recipe for a long-lasting partnership

They’re an odd couple, the neurologist from Sao Paolo, Brazil, and the anesthesiologist from Humboldt, Tennessee.

Moacir Schnapp, MD, is the son of a World War II concentration camp survivor, a Romanian Jew who fled Europe after the war for a new life as a goldsmith in South America.

Kit Mays, MD, grew up with a father who sold used furniture and a mother who ran a youth center in Humboldt.

When the doctors met in 1979 at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, the odds would have seemed unlikely that the quick bond they formed would evolve into a business partnership that has lasted more than three decades. At Mays & Schnapp Pain Clinic and Rehabilitation Center, they have proved that two heads, and two disciplines, are better than one.

“We actually clicked together on the first day” in Memphis in 1979, Schnapp said, “and it’s essentially been like this since then. I’ve been partners with Dr. Mays as long as I’ve been married.”

Schnapp had been married just three days when he arrived in the United States. He had completed a neurology residency and was considering what was then a relatively small number of pain programs around the country. He took a look at Seattle and then came to Memphis, where Mays was the first director of the relatively new University of Tennessee Pain Clinic.

“When I saw Dr. Schnapp, I was immediately impressed that he was brilliant, earnest and an all-around good fellow,” Mays said. “If I remember correctly, we created a fellowship for him. That was undoubtedly one of the best things I did while at the university: recruiting Dr. Schnapp.”

After his fellowship training, Schnapp returned to Brazil and started the Brazilian Pain Society, the largest chapter of the International Association for the Study of Pain, which was the largest pain group in the world outside the U.S.

When Mays left UT to form his own private practice, Schnapp returned to Memphis and succeeded Mays as director of UT’s Pain Clinic. Schnapp and his family moved into Mays’ home with his family.

“He delivered my first boy,” Schnapp said. “He also officiated the wedding ceremony for that same son years later. That is how much I trust him.”

After he returned to the States, it was only another year or so before Schnapp joined Mays’ practice, and soon Mays & Schnapp Pain Clinic and Rehabilitation Center was born, becoming one of the first pain management clinics in North American to be accredited by CARF (Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities). It remains the only one within a 500-mile radius of Memphis.

Mays had been interested in medicine since he was a young boy, and he was inspired by the family’s physician in Humboldt, J.D. Rozelle, MD, who had taken care of his parents during their lengthy illnesses.

Mays had already decided to become a doctor by the time both of his parents died of cancer a year after his graduation from high school, and the experience steered him toward the fields of anesthesia and eventually pain management.

“My parents both had serious pain problems for which there were not a lot of solutions at the time,” he said.

Mays’ mentors at the University of Tennessee – Robert Popper, MD, chief of anesthesiology at the VA, and Bill North, MD, chairman of the anesthesia department – along with the chairmen of the departments of psychiatry and neurosurgery decided to open a multi-disciplinary pain clinic. They chose Mays as its first director.

“When Dr. Mays started the pain clinic, I think in 1976, this was not even on the radar,” Schnapp said. “Nobody paid attention to the multi-disciplinary treatment of pain. There was one book published on pain management in 1956, and by 1980 there was still no other textbook published on pain management.”

Mays and Schnapp helped fill that void once they became partners.

“I think we published 17 papers and parts of three books in three or four years,” Mays said. “It was a very productive time scientifically and a very successful time clinically.”

Both doctors said the partnership and mutual respect have never wavered.

“Moacir is a superb human being and a fine physician,” Mays said. “He has been a good partner all these years. Moacir and I both read extensively and are always searching for new approaches to pain problems. It’s always been a collaborative partnership. It is like you are looking at the same thing from two different perspectives. He has different cultural and educational backgrounds.”

“We clicked in part because we knew we needed each other,” Schnapp said. “Pain management is an extremely taxing specialty. Having Dr. Mays close to me so I can discuss a case and bounce some of my worries about a patient off of him has been invaluable. I have seen other pain specialists burn out by working in a solo practice. I think, as much as possible, there should be one partner to help share the burden.”

Away from the office, Mays’ and Schnapp’s paths don’t cross as frequently as they once did. But in spite of the demands of family and personal interests, they maintain a close friendship. The two also continue to collaborate extensively on the research and development of novel devices that may prove to be of great value in the field of pain management.

“We don’t spend so much time together outside the office,” Schnapp said. “Maybe that preserves our sanity. It’s like being married to somebody and then working with them. It becomes a little harder. It may be why our partnership has lasted over 30 years.”