CHICAGO ― Gretchen L. Birbeck, MD, MPH, DTMH, will be presented the J. Kiffin Penry Award for Excellence in Epilepsy Care during the 2024 Annual Meeting of the American Epilepsy Society (AES). The J. Kiffin Penry Award for Excellence in Epilepsy Care honors Dr. Penry’s lifelong focus on and genuine concern for people with epilepsy. It recognizes individuals whose work has had a major impact on patient care and has improved the quality of life for persons with epilepsy. The award is funded through the AES J. Kiffin Penry Fund.
Dr. Birbeck is the Rykenboer professor of neurology at the University of Rochester, New York, and has served as director of the Chikankata Epilepsy Care Team in Mazabuka, Zambia since 2002. She is also a consultant for the University Teaching Hospitals in Lusaka, Zambia.
Her work in sub-Saharan Africa began as a University of Chicago medical student in rural Zambia. Caring for the devastating dual burdens of acute symptomatic malarial seizures and severe burns from untreated epilepsy set the foundation for her lifelong commitment to epilepsy care, education and research. In addition to her leadership role in epilepsy care in Zambia’s rural Southern Province, she has developed and implemented epilepsy care materials appropriate for non-physician healthcare workers, including the World Health Organization’s first edition Mental Health Gap Action Programme and Where There is No Neurologist funded by Lancet.
She helped establish electroencephalogram (EEG) labs in tertiary care centers in Zambia and Malawi, rural hospitals in regions with high epilepsy burden and the private sector and provides support as an EEG reader to many of these facilities on an ongoing basis. Her research has received 25 years of continuous support from the National Institutes of Health and includes neuroprotective clinical trials aimed at reducing the burden of post-malaria epilepsy.