Harvard physician tries hand at ‘The Last Poker Game’
Howard Weiner has written a novel about sick children, made a documentary about life’s big, unanswerable questions, and directed a feature film, “The Last Poker Game,” that premiered this spring to positive reviews at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. Not bad for a neurologist. When he’s not shouting “action!” on the set, Weiner is directing research into multiple sclerosis — he pioneered treating MS with chemotherapy — as well as Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and other neurologic conditions. He is also the founder of the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center and co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. But Weiner, the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, has never set limits on his inquiring mind. He majored in philosophy at Dartmouth College before heading to medical school in 1965. Big questions energize his creative side. “The Last Poker Game” began as an unpublished...