Dr. Ann Tilton

I also received my MD from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Ann Tilton, MD, FAAN, received the AAN President's Award at this year's AAN Annual Meeting in April. Here, she discusses the events and people who shaped her career—and what mentorship means to her.

As 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 or pediatrics—and went for best two out of three, and pediatrics won,” she said.

She enjoyed pediatrics, but a visit to a neurology clinic at a Dallas hospital grabbed her more and changed the course of her career.

“Behind every door was a diagnosis I'd never seen,” Dr. Tilton recalled. “I said, ‘I'm home. This is what I need to do.’ ... And I loved neuroscience. The unknown, the diagnostic—all of those things were fun.”

She combined her newfound fascination of the brain with her interest in treating children to become a child neurologist. After finishing residency, Dr. Tilton stayed on at the school for a couple years as a faculty member, an experience she described as “the ultimate super fellowship.”

“When you start out, you're the low person on the totem pole, and whatever they needed, I did,” she said. “I did all kind of things, [and] it was absolutely remarkable. ... I did neuromuscular clinics, set up the EEG lab, all of these things.”

Eventually, Dr. Tilton moved to Louisiana, where her husband, a cardiologist, grew up. They settled in New Orleans and raised two daughters and two sons as Dr. Tilton embraced her work at Louisiana State University.

Finding Mentors

“Mentors can come from many places, some unexpected,” she said, which for her included an orthopedist, who she said was “always looking to the future of care” and encouraged her to explore the use of botulinum toxins to treat patients.

“This was very early in its use, and there were few injectors, no guidebooks, and the beginning of clinical studies,” Dr. Tilton said. “I saw it as a challenge with great potential, so I accepted the challenge and decided to develop the program. That discussion and interest went on to define my research and clinical practice.”

As a mentor herself today, Dr. Tilton believes it is important for leaders to recommend junior members for positions. But they also must do their job well and enjoy it, she added.

Asked to run the Rehabilitation Center at Children's Hospital of New Orleans, Dr. Tilton said her career began to evolve as she ended up caring for lots of children with cerebral palsy. That condition and disabilities became her focus, and she's watched treatments bound forward, from botulinum toxin injections to intrathecal baclofen pumps and other interventions.

“It was just a wonderful ride,” she said. “The families, they have joy in things that people from the outside have no idea.”

Dr. Tilton also found time to give back to her field, serving as a member and vice chair of the ACGME Neurology Residency Review Committee and past chair of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She also held numerous roles with the AAN, including secretary/treasurer of the AAN Institute, vice president of the AAN Board of Directors, chair of the Meeting Management Committee, and mentor in AAN leadership programs, earning the academy's Leading in Excellence Through Mentorship award in 2022.

She has seen more women enter medicine since she graduated from medical school, and she tries hard to mentor them. This can be as simple as taking a walk with them and being available to listen and chat, encouraging them to “be authentic and truthful to yourself,” she said, adding that she makes sure to include, promote, encourage, and advocate for other women.

“It's incredibly important that women support women and people recognize the difficulties of being the primary caregiver and nurturer and nurturing in different places,” Dr. Tilton said.

Finding Challenges and Opportunities

Working with wonderful colleagues has been a highlight of her career, she said, but the job also has had its challenges, like knowing she can't change the course of disease for some patients and the extreme costs of the new treatments for neuromuscular diseases.

Dr. Tilton also continues to conduct clinical research—she has some work in movement disorders ready to begin—in addition to seeing patients and running the rehabilitation unit.

One patient whose story has stuck with her had an unusual disorder, dopa-responsive dystonia, which left him non-verbal and using a wheelchair but cognitively normal. Thanks to an available medicine, however, he soon was walking and talking and eventually went to college.

During elementary school, a classmate died of myasthenia gravis, a devastating incident that left Dr. Tilton questioning how such a thing could happen. Thanks to advances in treatment, however, such a death would not occur today, she noted. Mandatory newborn screenings for diseases like Duchenne muscular dystrophy and gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy also have changed the game for child neurology—and transformed the lives of those patients.

While Dr. Tilton has no plans to retire just yet, the grandmother of two toddlers has some ideas for how she may spend her career after medicine.

“So much of your career is what's next, what's next?’” said Dr. Tilton. “I've taken some coaching courses. I hope to do career coaching and follow up on things I have postponed and have not done. I'm exploring art, sculpture, new travel, and of course always hunting for a long-lost talent.”

https://journals.lww.com/neurotodayonline/fulltext/2024/08150/aan_president_awardee_ann_tilton_on_career.9.aspx/?cid=eTOC+Issues.2024-neurotodayonline