Dear CNS Members,
With a heavy heart, I am sharing news that J. Gordon Millichap, MD passed away peacefully on May 7, 2021 at his home in Chicago at the age of 102 years. Dr. Millichap was a revered founding member of our society and community. He was Professor Emeritus of Neurology and Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and Pediatric Neurology at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. He was known for having established pediatric neurology training programs at the Mayo Clinic (1961), Children’s Memorial Hospital – now Lurie Children’s (1963), and SIU Medical School (1989). Dr. Millichap trained in internal medicine and pediatrics at Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical Center, University of London, and completed fellowships in child neurology and epilepsy at Boston Children’s Hospital, and neurology and neuropathology at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Many of us got to know Dr. Millichap through his tireless work in producing Pediatric Neurology Briefs, which serve as the template for what the Society is newly promoting with our own “CNS Synapses,” published quarterly in CNS Connections, to bring the current literature to our members with a sophisticated, practical, and nuanced perspective.
On a very personal level, I am grateful to Dr. Gordon Millichap for having shared with me his warm remembrances of working closely during his own training with William G. Lennox, founder of the Seizure Unit at Boston Children’s Hospital, to direct extensive research, educational, and advocacy efforts toward helping persons with epilepsy. There is no substitute for first-hand knowledge.
As we prepare to celebrate our 50th anniversary, paying particular attention to the legacies that shape us, no clearer or greater legacy comes to mind than that Dr. Millichap’s son, John, is a fellow CNS member, Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Neurology and Epilepsy) at Northwestern University School of Medicine, and Editor of Pediatric Neurology Briefs.
Phillip L. Pearl MD
President, Child Neurology Society
William G. Lennox Chair, Boston Children’s Hospital
Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School