Last weekend the Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon marked the 11th annual Pacific Northwest Brain Injury Conference and the 30th Anniversary of the Pioneer Awards Dinner. The annual brain injury event brings together brain injury survivors, brain injury health care providers, Oregon brain injury lawyers, Washington brain injury lawyers, with other brain injury association members attending from the Brain Injury Alliance of Washington, the Alaska Brain Injury Network, the Brain Injury Alliance of Idaho and beyond.
It is unclear why but Oregon Health Sciences University and the OHSU Brain Institute (which almost solely handles brain surgery cases - a very small percentage of all TBIs) runs a competing brain injury event for the public on the same weekend each year at OMSI.
At Friday evening’s awards ceremony, master of ceremonies and local KOIN News anchor Ken Boddie presented recipients with various awards.
Among the award recipients, Muriel Lezak Ph.D., received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Lezak is an accomplished and revered neuropsychologist. She is best known for her book, Neuropsychological Assessment published by Oxford University Press, widely accepted as the authoritative book in the field of brain injury testing. In 1996, she received the Distinguished Neuropsychologist Award from the US-based National Academy of Neuropsychology. Dr. Lezak is Emeritus Professor of Neurology at the Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine. She and Dr. DeShaw call each other from time to time to discuss matters regarding traumatic brain injury, and developments in TBI testing and treatment.
Lawyer Aaron DeShaw is a board member of the Brain Injury Alliance of Oregon, and introduced Dr. Lezak at the conference earlier that day. Our office has been lucky to work with Dr. Lezak a small number of times on serious traumatic brain injury cases, some of which are included as case studies in the 5th Edition of Dr. Lezak's book, which she co-authored with brain imaging pioneer Erin Bigler Ph.D.