Connie Kubiak: My name is Connie Kubiak, and I'm the chair of the

Historical Advisory Committee for ASET. And today I have the

pleasure of interviewing Kristina Port. It is February

28th 2025. Welcome Kristina. Thank you so much for agreeing

to do this for us and for ASET.

Kristina Port: And thank you, Connie, for the invitation.

Connie Kubiak: So Kristina, can you name where and when you

received your credentials and where you currently work?

Kristina Port: Well, I started training when I was only 17

years old. I was trained at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland,

Ohio, back in 1971 and in 1973 I received my R. EEG T. EEG

credential. And then in 1987 I received my R. EP T. and in 1983

I received my Registered Polysomnography boards. And in

2001 I became a CNIM. So those are the credentials I hold

within neurodiagnostics.

Connie Kubiak: Are you currently working in the field or are you

retired?

Kristina Port: Yes, I work part time at University Hospitals

Cleveland, Ohio, and I also am a trustee of a township, so that

that consumes my other part of my, my day.

Connie Kubiak: What drew you to EEG and neurodiagnostics?

Kristina Port: Well, it pretty much started, and there was an

article back in an ASET newsletter years ago that was

entitled "A Family Affair", and essentially, my mother had

started in doing EKGs and and heart studies at a facility in

Cleveland, and then her boss was doing EEGs, and trained her to

do EEGs. So she was the backup person for EEGs. And this is

back in the 1960s, 1970s. So what happened was, I always

heard this, oh, the occipitals and the frontals and all these,

these placements of leads and different types of patients from

my mother. Encounters from her work, you know, just saying

things about work. And I know that I wanted to be a doctor,

but that cost too much money. And so my mother had worked for

a neurologist, and he sponsored me to be trained at Cleveland

Clinic for EEG training. So that's how I started in EEG.

Connie Kubiak: Was this a popular specialty when you were

starting your career?

Kristina Port: Nobody knew what EEG was, and they still kind of

confuse EEG, EKG and EGG, which is an egg. So I would say that

essentially, there was, it was a very niche market in allied

health. And again, most of the people were not specialized in

training, specifically in EEG, they may have been people that

did EKGs or other testing in cardiac or respiratory, and then

they may have been lumped into a department where they just did

testing. However, I was very fortunate to be trained at

Cleveland Clinic, and they had Dr Charles Henry, who was head

of that department, and he specifically ensured that we

were trained as EEG technologists.

Connie Kubiak: Who were your early mentors that you can think

of?

Kristina Port: Well, Dr Charles Henry was a pioneer, and of

course, John Knott was one of his cohorts back then as

pioneers of the EEG field. And so he was the director of the

laboratory, and he was the one who mentored all the

technologists, and even we became known as Charlie's Angels

over the years with any technologist that went through

his training program. And also George Klem, he was the

supervisor at that time. And George Klem, as you may know,

was very instrumental in trying to get ABRET together for

testing for EEG. And then also he served as an ASET president.

So he was very instrumental in making sure that the

technologists where I was trained were in the loop of what

was going on with advances within this field. And then, of

course, Marvin Sams was down in Columbus. He was a past

president of ASET as well. And Janet Brotherhood had come

in...she'd been a president as well. So there were many

technologists early in the field that rotated either through

Cleveland clinic or were working with the department head or

supervisor to advance the field at that time.

Connie Kubiak: What were your earliest career influences?

Kristina Port: Well, I would say that just having the support of

an environment where there was understanding from Dr Henry that

you needed to understand why you were doing what you were doing.

Essentially, it was there is always a reason, and he wanted

you to develop critical thinking skills as to why you were doing

a certain test or a certain procedure, and also just the

influences, having an environment where there was a

camaraderie of the technologists and the physicians banding

together to share information. And again, this was early on in

the field. You know, ASET had only been around since 1959 so

you're looking at 10 years later. So there were changes

that needed to be made, protocols that needed to be

established, etc.

Connie Kubiak: If you had not become an EEG technologist. What

would you have liked to have done? I know you mentioned you

had wanted to be a physician. If you had gone to medicine, did

you have a field that you wanted to specialize in?

Kristina Port: Well, I probably would have went for neurology,

because I'd heard so much about neurology or cardiology, because

my mother had worked in cardiology as well, so one of

those two fields, the other thing was, I hadn't done that, I

wanted to be a pilot. I took aviation in high school, and I

thought I'd like to have been an airline pilot.

Connie Kubiak: Nice. Why do you think this field took off when

and how it did?

Kristina Port: Well, I think that it started off because ASET

started in 1959 as you know, and there was the international

system of electrode placement, and they were looking more for

standardization, that you know, from one end of the country to

the other, or internationally, an EEG was going to be recorded

the same way, no matter where you were, with the lead

placement standardized and that, you know, the equipment was

going to be coming as technology advanced, but at least the

basics of how you perform an EEG, what's the essential

components of it? If there's hyperventilation, photic

stimulation, sleep deprivation, any of that. Ensuring that the

electrodes are adhering to the scalp and that there is a

technically good, satisfactory recording obtained was the key

part of things. And I think that what was happening was just the

view of, there was such because there wasn't, there was only, at

that time, four actual programs for training for EEG in the

country. So you you look at it as how are EEG is being done,

just on the job training. And somebody said, Put the leads

here, and you just assumed it was okay. So there needed to be

standardization. And I think that these earlier technologists

and physicians assured that the quality and the protocols were

developed so that there was standardization.

Connie Kubiak: What equipment did you train on, and what were

the limitations of it?

Kristina Port: Well, I was very fortunate to train on the GRASS

system, and one of the key areas was that Peggy Henry was married

to Dr Charles Henry, and she was related to Albert grass and and

family. So they had been pioneers in EEG equipment back

then. They had the old, they had a Model 3, they had a Model 6.

We were fortunate to have Model 8s, which were more state of the

art when I was training, and essentially the the drawback was

that the machines were like 400 pounds, so they were very, very

heavy because of the oscillographs at the end, the

magnets that were needed to for the pen system for recording.

And fact is, is that prior to that, that was vacuum tubes. So

vacuum tubes, you know, could burn out. So they needed to look

at a system that was going to have more well, ended up as

being transistorized. And so the technology had advanced so that

the equipment amplifiers were actually smaller than they had

originally been, and they gotten away from vacuum tubes and into

transistor circuitry,

Connie Kubiak: Other than GRASS is there any other equipment

that you've used over the years?

Kristina Port: Yeah, I used Beckman and Beckman I didn't

like because of the they always wanted purple ink, the violet

ink I just had some problems with. I mean, black was black,

but purple was purple, and so that was but then there was

other equipment as well. You know, there was other

manufacturers, there was Traeker Northern, there was Teca, there

was Stellate. They eventually branched off into Biologic.

There was some Viasys, which was Nicolet, and then also, pretty

much those were the standards back then for EEG equipment, and

then Nihon Kohden, of course, came into the market.

Connie Kubiak: What specific memories do you have of your

training program? I know you talked a little bit about some

of the mentors you had, but anything that stands out, like

every time you know, somebody says, Oh yeah, when I you know,

when I trained, I remember blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, anything

particular for you.

Kristina Port: I just remember that I had a technologist who

always, never forgot to let everybody know that back in the

day when pen rollers and then there was analog systems for

EEG, my hair was very long at the time, and it got caught in

the rollers of the rollers for the paper chart drive, and it

was going around and around. So I mean that I never lived down

that was one of those stories that people would tell. But

essentially, it was just a thing of I think that the advent of

just changes in hospitals. I remember back when I was

training people were smoking in the hospitals, and one of the

instances, and this might be kind of strange, but we used to

put our collodion. We put the leads on with collodion, and we

would put the glue, the collodion in ashtrays. And

sometimes patients would come in and they would think the ashtray

was for their ashes, for their cigarettes, and they put their

cigarettes out, and then all of a sudden, there would be a

little small fire started, because the collodion would the

cellophane area would catch on fire. So that kind of was became

a no-no, and then there was less smoking in the actual

laboratory. But I mean, back in the day, people would smoke

during, you know, around flammable materials, which is a

no-no nowadays. So that would be one of my earliest memories.

Connie Kubiak: What are the main ways in which the field has

changed over your career?

Kristina Port: Well, I think that the advances are not only

the fact that there's a support group of technologists that are

dedicated to ensuring that people are trained and have

educational opportunities, workshops, seminars, webinars

over the years. But also technology. I mean, when I

started, there was, you know, the vacuum tube machines to

transistorized and everything was analog, and then it became

digital. So the technology has changed and advanced the field.

And again, I, I started with EEG, but then as technology

advanced, you are now able to record evoked potentials. And

so, you know, just having those, those those limits removed,

advanced the field to expand to other diagnostic areas of

recording polysomnography, you know these huge, tall, towered

machines with the AC DC amplifiers, which, again, they

were they were cumbersome, to say the least, but again, they

were instrumental in allowing recordings to be done. And

again, those were analog machines. But as everything

became more digitized, again, the system for recording and

acquisition changge from something that may have been

several hundred pounds to now a laptop, and then just having

ancillary equipment jack in, or plug in USB connections for a

laptop so that has been something that continues to be

more what what standardized.

Connie Kubiak: So you talked a little bit here about the

scientific knowledge that changed the field. What do you

think was the biggest breakthrough from an EEG or

neurodiagnostic standpoint?

Kristina Port: The biggest what I would say would be the fact

that testing was not limited to a laboratory. You know, back in

the 60s, they used to have copper screened specific area

EEG rooms that were constructed to keep out any type of artifact

that might develop. So part of that understanding of the

technology advances allowed more flexibility in having just a

laboratory that was stationary to now being able to move around

a hospital and provide the service to where it was needed,

as opposed to where it might have been a brick and mortar

laboratory. So I think that that was one thing that, and allowing

laptops, you know, again, it's easier for people to move and do

recordings off site, you know, go to where the customer is, as

opposed to having them travel to you. Opened up the field to more

possibilities for flexibility and in meeting the need for

where the patient is and getting that study done.

Connie Kubiak: What are two or three big issues in EEG that

people are working on to solve today?

Kristina Port: Well, I know that I started back in the 2000s when

we were looking at ASET with a model bill for licensure, and

the pendulum keeps swinging back and forth on that with respect

to I was very fortunate in the 2000s to know Many legislators

in our state and they had crafted a model bill. And ASET

had a model bill because we felt there was the threat from other

allied health areas that might intrude into our neurodiagnostic

field, and in such we wanted to ensure that our field was

protected from people that were just, you know, could just slot

in, and so to speak, into a position without any training or

qualifications. So that was one of the issues that continued for

years on looking at licensure, and then there was occupational

regulation as to, now it's a thing of, is licensure really

necessary, or is it something that you want to have

occupational regulation that would allow protection for the

field and such, for people that are in this career path without

having somebody substituted because of it might have been a

cheaper labor force or so. So I think that licensure

occupational regulation is one of the key areas. The other has

to do with the expansion to long term monitoring, with the

advances of technology, with the electrodes, with the application

methods, with the understanding of the need for 24/7 recordings

there's been more of a push for ensuring that there could be

remote monitoring coverage by technologists or physicians to

ensure that if somebody is being recorded long term, that

somebody is viewing that real time. Or that the reporting is

continuous because it impacts the person's care and their care

treatment plan.

Connie Kubiak: What are the main areas of professional discussion

or disagreement today?

Kristina Port: I used to be an executive director for a

committee that accredited neurodiagnostic programs, the

CoA- END, and the push back then was to have formal training

programs that were affordable to a technologist student who

wanted to get an associate degree or be able to go on to

have the ability to get a bachelor's degree or better. And

what I find is that there was a push for a lot of formal

training. The problem is, is that the demand for

technologists to cover actual facilities has never kept pace

with the demand for to fill these positions, and I feel that

there now is more emphasis placed on a facility where they

could say that they have a structured on the job training

program again, so that they can get people in a pipeline within

their facility to be the technologists of the next, you

know, the next day, so to speak. And I look at that as they may

be good in one respect, but again, you're only going to get

that perspective, of that culture, of that actual

facility. So I look at there may be less opportunities for the

technologist student to really experience what, what's really

going on within the country of the technologists and their

duties, as opposed to just being regionalized to whatever

facility they were trained at. And so in one respect, the push

was for formal education and accreditation and credentialing

with ABRET, etc. But then now it seems to be, let's shorten this

pathway, because we have a need for people that are trained, and

if we can relax the rules somewhat to allow a tech to

train on the job again. It sounds like what we did 30 40,

years ago was on the job training, and now we're kind of

going back to that.

Connie Kubiak: What are you most proud of in your professional

life?

Kristina Port: I'm most proud of the fact that I never gave up,

that I I advanced with the field. When I started, it was

EEG, and then from EEG, then because of technology advances,

then there was evoked potentials. So I learned those

modalities and and became credentialed in that. And then

as and then sleep polysomnography entered the

field more so I advanced and learned about polysomnography

and got those credentials, and then there was interoperative

monitoring. So you know, all these little adjuncts of what

the base was for EEG now the scope of practice expanded, and

I've kept current with CEUs. I've kept up my credentials, and

I really internalized the fact that I'm a representative of

this field, that I should be a role model. You know, it should

be something where you just don't rest on your laurels and

say, "Okay, I got one credential. I'm done". It's a

thing of trying to be a lifelong learner, to stay current with

what's going on within the field, what advancements there

may be, and positioning yourself to learn. And one of the things

I always told all of the people that I trained was that you may

not like this learning this stuff now, it might seem hard,

or you might not want to do it, but essentially, it makes you

more marketable. It makes you more well well rounded within

the field to offer more opportunities. So I always look

at it as push yourself so that you can be flexible. You can be

positioned for any type of market or technology position

that might open up in the future, and then also be a

contributor, not just be a sponge and take all the

information in, but also to mentor others as well, as you

know, give enough examples and presentations and such so that

people can learn from your experiences as well.

Connie Kubiak: Where do you see neurodiagnostics in 10 years?

Kristina Port: In 10 years, I look at it as I don't know what

the whole AI will bring to this. I just am concerned in that if

they don't get AI right and you have misinformation put in at

the beginning I hope it doesn't stay as a platform, that it is

corrected early on, that people are paying attention to this.

Technology wise, I look at there's such a need for people

to have hands on knowledge of how to do an actual procedure,

or testing, specifically in intraoperative monitoring. I

mean, there's you can't just test a patient, you know,

because they're in the OR and they're under sedation and and

be able to do that. So I look at it as there should be more, and

they probably will be more simulated labs, more simulation

of what could go wrong, you know, just as like they have

policemen doing simulation shootings for you know, it was

good guy, bad guy, you know, to test their skill sets, I think

that there's going to be more simulation that allows a person

that may need to develop some skill sets that may not see type

of procedure every day to be able to practice by simulation.

So I look at that, and then my other hope is that with people

for 60 70, years, still having issues of how to measure a head,

I would hope that they have some type of like spot gun that goes

on your head that shows exactly where the 10-20 system is, so

that it could show exactly where these people need to put these

leads, so that they're always in the same place, and that that's

not going to be something that's always, you know, that's that's

a key part of doing any type of testing is putting the leads on

and making sure they're in the right places. So I look at

having some type of technology to just to be able to, you know,

Spot check where these leads go and making sure they're

accurate. That that would be something that I could foresee

in the future as well.

Connie Kubiak: What is the best piece of advice that you've ever

received?

Kristina Port: Well, I think the best piece of advice I heard was

from my mother, who said that, if you know, get educated, if

you educate yourself, no one can ever take that away from you.

You can lose your house, you can lose your your spouse, your

family, you can lose your job, things, but if you internalize

and educate yourself and make yourself you know, with you

know, advance yourself that way, no one can ever take that away

from you. And I look at it as it's not only not taking away,

but now you have an understanding, and you're able

to explain things better to others. And so to me, it was the

thing of, you know, make yourself marketable, educate

yourself, but then don't just hoard that knowledge for

yourself, share it with others so that they can learn as well

along the way.

Connie Kubiak: Is there anyone else in neurodiagnostics that

you think would be beneficial for us to talk to?

Kristina Port: Well, I mean, I know that there's, you know, the

people that I knew of you know, I think it's nice if ASET would

have, like a little at their annual meeting. It would be nice

to have just even people that attend the meeting, that have

been in the field a long time, just share a sentence or two

about their experiences and stuff, and then, and then start

archiving that that would be good to you know, you meet

people at different meetings geographically. They may be in

different parts of the country, but you still want to have that

connection. And reaching out or hearing from people, I think, is

important to get a pulse on what where the field's going, or what

the actual concerns are of the members or people within the

field, what their concerns are.

Connie Kubiak: Who are the prominent

electroencephalographers, either living or deceased, who should

be documented by us?

Kristina Port: Well, of course, I'm going to be partial to Dr

Charles Henry, as he and Dr John Knott were one of the people.

There's Dr Yamada. There's, you know, there was Dr Klass,

Barbara Westmoreland. There was Ernst Niedermeyer, of course,

you know, as a technologist, Lew Kull, you know he was and Kathy

Mears. I mean, we have memorials that are set up for that and

recognition of technologists as well that have contributed to

the field, not just physicians, but again, you know the field,

you have different people in intraoperative monitoring, or

you have the, you know, I just remember Peter McGregor was the

big name in sleep and, you know, polysomnography back in the day.

So, I mean, there's a lot of pioneers or technologists or

people that have contributed to the field to not only know that

they've worked within it, but also contributed back with

educational papers and seminars that have helped advance the

field as well.

Connie Kubiak: If you could have a conversation with any

neurodiagnostic related scientist, who would it be, and

why?

Kristina Port: Well, I think it would probably be Hans Luders,

because Hans Luders, he knows multiple languages. I mean, he's

written papers worldwide. He's someone who really knows his

field, and at the age of 82 he's still contributing to training

residents and technologists and writing books or reviewing

articles that are contributing to the field, and especially

with epilepsy. So I just think that he's somebody that's closer

to where I live, you know, in Cleveland, Ohio, and yet he he's

well respected, well renowned without throughout the world,

and he's done so much for training, for the doctors within

the field as well as contributed to the advancement of the field.

Connie Kubiak: So Kristina, now we're going to move on to the

ASET President specific questions. What years did you

serve as ASET President?

Kristina Port: Well, I served as president from 1989 to 1991 and

then was past president from 91 to 93 and I was pregnant at the

time with twins. (laughing)

Connie Kubiak: (laughing) Nice. What was your greatest

accomplishment as president? Other than delivering twins?

Kristina Port: Well, I guess it was the fact that, well, one of

the one of the recommendations was that, as ASET Past

Presidents, we can get our annual meeting be able to go

there for without paying a fee and having our membership

covered, which I really appreciate, and also it's I

really had Sabrina Beacham was my Vice President, and Denise

Frye was my Secretary Treasurer, and they all became Presidents

after that, so there was almost like a succession plan, and we

all worked well together. And Sabrina Beacham then was

pregnant too, so there was a lot of hormones going on at that

time, but we all did what was best for ASET.

Connie Kubiak: What can we learn from experience?

Kristina Port: That lifelong learning is lifelong learning.

When you think that you think you know everything you don't

and to it's to kid yourself to think you do know everything. So

to me, it's a matter of being open and receptive to

understanding people may have a different point of view or

reference and may have had a little different experience, but

as long as you have the common vernacular or the common purpose

of trying to reach a goal, you know, then collaboration works

the best in trying to accomplish those goals.

Connie Kubiak: What advice would you give to a new ASET board

member?

Kristina Port: I would say, "Listen". You know, the the the

point is, is you can put on your ASET bio that you've had X

accomplishments or credentials or whatever, but I think that

the the purpose of being a board member is to be complimentary to

the other board members, meaning that that your skill sets may

compliment another one that may have a little different focus in

their field, or what their jobs are. And one might be manager,

one might be a technologist that's in the field, you know,

line service, or there might be somebody that's in the education

part of this whole program of neurodiagnostic technology.

One's not better than another. One is one credential is not

better than another, and having multiple credentials is great,

but it doesn't mean unless you pass that knowledge on and share

it, then it's lost within you. So again, it's a matter better

to take inventory of your skill sets and try to position

yourself to listen to what issues are and get more

information as to if there needs to be more in depth

understanding of it before decisions are made.

Connie Kubiak: What advice would you give to a new ASET member?

Kristina Port: Reach out to anybody that will help you,

because I think that most technologists in the field, from

my years of experience, are more than happy to answer questions,

more than happy to help you, more than happy to to tell you

where a meeting will be, or where they can get some help or

some assistance with a montage, or, you know, some type of

procedure that somebody may not do often. So I would say, reach

out, you know, you have your your ASET chapters, which you

know are great. You have the annual meeting, you have your

webinars, you have you know other associations. There's you

know always YouTube. But to me, it's a thing of reaching out to

your chapters or your ASET and ensuring that you know you you

become a member. You know it's good to be you have, you have to

have some skin in the game. And that means paying your dues. And

then the the point of paying your dues is that you do have

those opportunities for education and advancement and

networking and collaboration, and that's the key to anything.

Connie Kubiak: What elements are important to sustain a legacy?

Kristina Port: I don't know. I really, I don't know. I would

just say that there's always a remembrance of what the main

purpose is and bringing it to the forefront. But that's

something I don't I don't, I mean, I'd have to ponder. It

just, doesn't roll off the tip of my tongue as to what sustains

a legacy?

Connie Kubiak: Where do you see ASET in the next five years?

Kristina Port: Well, looking at exponential growth, I look at it

as it's still an association that's growing. It's having

outreach. It has core membership. It's very well

organized with respect to ensuring that educational

programming is available for technologists, you know, either

in a Chapter area or an annual meeting seminar series where you

know enough different topics within our field are covered so

that there's an appeal to anybody within this field to

gain some education. I just think of it as it's, it's, it's

a growing organization. And again, with technology, there

might be other kinds of testing that could be popping up in the

future. I don't know. I'm not a, I'm not a fortune teller here,

but I imagine that. You know, with new procedures, new

technology, AI, you know, just just advances, as fast as

they're occurring, there's going to be opportunities for new

material to be presented, people to be needing to know current

things that are going on. So there's always going to be

learning opportunities, as well as the basics that are the

fundamentals of the the bread and butter diagnostic testing.

Connie Kubiak: So as we come to the end of our interview here,

Kristina, is there any other thoughts or comments that you

want to share with the membership or the

neurodiagnostic community at large that we haven't touched on

or discussed?

Kristina Port: Well, I, I look at, you know, at one point it

seemed like ASNM was, you know, for intraoperative monitoring.

You know, they, they seem to be either inviting technologists to

be more part of their organization, or at one point

there seemed to be where there was a hierarchy, you know, like

the the PhDs were in charge, and the techs were kind of along,

you know, the way. With polysomnography, it's such a

huge field and such with with the diversity of having

respiratory or neurodiagnostics, or, you know, dental or

different disciplines in allied health within their component,

it's harder to to manage that, but with with ASET, I just think

that you know, you you have your pillars, your fundamentals of

education, I think it's served all the members well. I think

that that's something that's going to continue. And I don't

think that other associations will challenge the position of

ASET as an organization that is, you know, the most recognized

organization for neuro iagnostic technologists in the nation.

Connie Kubiak: Kristina, on behalf of ASET and the

Historical Advisory Committee, I want to thank you for your time

and doing this interview.