AAN President Awardee Ann Tilton on Career Highlights, Mentorship, and Advances in Child Neurology
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: A s a child growing up in Texas, Ann Tilton, MD, FAAN, recalls precisely the moment when her friend asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up.She responded without hesitation from the top of a tree they had climbed: I want to be a doctor.Dr. Tilton has more than achieved her childhood aspirations in her more than 40 years of work as a successful child neurologist conducting groundbreaking research and running a rehabilitation unit.She received the AAN President's Award this past April at the AAN Annual Meeting in Denver for her exemplary career and volunteer work on behalf of the field of neurology.A former president of the Child Neurology Foundation and the Child Neurology Society and former vice president of the AAN Board of Directors, Dr. Tilton said she was "floored" when AAN President Carlayne E. Jackson, MD, FAAN, called her over the winter to inform her of the award."I walked up and told my husband, 'This isn't real,'" said Dr. Tilton, a professor of neurology and pediatrics and chief of the child neurology section at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center and member of the Neurology Today editorial board, adding, "It was just the most wonderful experience."One could say the same of her career.After graduating early from her undergraduate program at Texas A&M University-Kingsville with a degree in biology/chemistry and before starting medical school, Dr. Tilton spent time doing environmental impact studies as well as benchtop research, something she continued during residency.This gave her some more insight into what she might want to do-and not do-with her career."It became apparent even early on [while] I was talking to my rabbits and mung beans that I needed to talk to people," she said with a laugh.Dr. Tilton stayed in the Lonestar State for medical school, graduating from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and then headed to the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas for her residency.Neurology wasn't Dr. Tilton's initial choice, though."I flipped a coin-medicine
Source: Neurology Today
Author: Caitlin Heaney West
Language: English
Subfield: Neurology
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: Child Neurology Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W4401618000