The third annual Timothy M. George, MD, Memorial Lecture, held at Dell Children’s on November 8, was presented by Susan Durham, MD, MS, chief of neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Durham, who is also the J. Gordon McComb Family Chair in Neurosurgery, co-director of the Neurological Institute, and director of the neurosurgery fellowship program at CHLA as well as professor of clinical neurological surgery at Keck School of Medicine of USC, spoke on building a multidisciplinary pediatric brachial plexus program, including the contributions of each specialty to the brachial plexus team.
Durham’s keynote lecture was followed by the Timothy M. George, MD, Memorial Lecture Research Symposium: Access to Care in Pediatric Neuroscience, a mini symposium featuring presentations by pediatric neuroscience and pediatrics faculty members. Dell Med assistant professor of neurosurgery Kevin Kumar, MD, PhD, discussed microglia replacement therapy for pediatric brain tumors, one of his specialty areas of clinical research. Other Dell Med faculty speakers included assistant professor of pediatrics Ryan Lowery, MD, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics Michelle Gallas, DO, and associate professor of pediatrics Maria Monge, MD.
Timothy George, MD, was a professor of neurosurgery at Dell Med and a pediatric neurosurgeon at Dell Children’s when he died unexpectedly in 2019. Dr. George graduated from New York University Grossman School of Medicine before completing his neurosurgery residency at Yale University and his pediatric neurosurgery fellowship at Northwestern University. He joined the faculty of Duke University in 1996 and in 2006 moved to Dell Children’s. His research interests included Chiari malformation and the genetic mechanisms of neural tube defects.
Previous memorial lecture guest speakers have included John (Jay) Wellons III, MD, MSPH, professor of neurological surgery and pediatrics and chief of pediatric neurological surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Bermans J. Iskandar, MD, professor of pediatric neurosurgery at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
