A Summary of the TV Program for those who missed it, by Frank M May:

  For those that missed it was an interesting story about a woman afflicted by schizophrenia (Carol North - who has also written a book about her experiences) who was cured in a unusual manner. Despite hearing voices, seeing sounds, at times plagued by hearing helicopters and a number of other symptoms so familiar to us here; she, with motivation and determination, managed to get through college and the first year of medical school before the symptoms became so obvious the people at the medical school had her evaluated. She was hospitalized, almost committed suicide and went through a lot that we're aware of from our experiences. Then her Doctor, decided to try an experiment. For a time, it was thought that there might be some toxin in the blood that was causing the illness. He put her on dialysis. Within a few treatments her symptoms were gone. As she put it "I woke to the most profound silence I had ever heard". Its been 18 years, she has discontinued the treatment and never a relapse. Went on to finish medical school and now treats schizophrenics in St. Louis. The treatment was tested on others with little or no results and is not considered a plausible treatment any longer.

She says "You never give up hope." is the lesson to be gained from her experience.

  From Mike MIller:

  The woman was Carol North. She is a psychiatrist on the faculty here at Washington University School of Medicine. She wrote the following book about her experiences.

  AUTHOR North, Carol S.

TITLE Welcome, silence : my triumph over schizophrenia / Carol S. North.

-- New York : Simon and Schuster, c1987.

  She also authored a book on multiple personality disorder, published in 1993. Obviously, she is very bright and a very hard worker.

  I suppose she would have qualified for a diagnosis of schizophrenia, but that wasn't entirely clear from the show. She definitely did have delusions and hallucinations, but there was a lot of strange visual distortion such as little dots all over her visual field. I don't know if she had any thought disorder or any of the bizarre delusions (such as thought broadcasting) that help to distinguish schizophrenia from other psychotic disorders in our currently popular diagnostic system.