15 min listen
Challenging Medical Dogma to Save Her Child - Dr. Tracy Dixon-Salazar, Executive Director of the LGS Foundation
FromRaise the Line
Challenging Medical Dogma to Save Her Child - Dr. Tracy Dixon-Salazar, Executive Director of the LGS Foundation
FromRaise the Line
ratings:
Length:
33 minutes
Released:
Jul 5, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
When Tracy Dixon-Salazar was a young mother of two she described herself as a mediocre high school student with no real academic or career ambitions. Today, she has a PhD in Neurobiology and Neurosciences, is credited with uncovering the genetic driver of a rare form of childhood-onset epilepsy, and she also identified the first precision therapy for it. Unfortunately, the spark for this remarkable change of course was her daughter Savannah’s battle with Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS) which caused hundreds of seizures a day, stopped her cognitive development and nearly killed her several times. It all started thirty years ago at a time when the condition was poorly understood. “Nobody really knew what to do with this kid so I realized I had to fight, I had to become her advocate. You'll do anything for your babies and so I had to become educated,” she explains to host Michael Carrese. Dixon-Salazar moved on from her academic life several years ago to become a full-time advocate as executive director of the LGS Foundation where she works with over 200 gene-specific advocacy groups for rare diseases. “It gives me so much hope. The ability for patients to have a voice in the whole process has changed. Now patients have a platform.” Don’t miss this incredible story of a mother’s persistence that changed the prevailing dogma about epilepsy and LGS and ushered in new approaches to treatment that have affected many children beyond Savannah. Mentioned in this episode: https://www.lgsfoundation.org/
Released:
Jul 5, 2023
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Dr. Conrad Fischer - Infectious Disease Specialist, Brookdale Hospital Medical Center: "Your calling is sacred." That's the message Dr. Conrad Fischer has for people entering health professions, especially in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. He took a few moments out from treating COVID-19 patients, twenty of whom had died in his Brooklyn hospital the previous day, to describe the fear, frustration, dedication and humanity of his colleagues who are doing their best in unprecedented circumstances. It's a gripping eyewitness account from the eye of the storm. by Raise the Line