Belizean Neurologist Bestowed with Prestigious Award in US

Doctor Randall Edgell, a Neurologist who attended Saint John’s College and pursued his medical education in the U.S., has been honored with the prestigious Sydney Souers Award. Edgell, the son of Belizean author Zee Edgell and brother of journalist Holly Edgell, is a Professor of Neurology and Surgery and the Director of the Souers Stroke Institute at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. For the past eighteen years, he has led the institute’s stroke services in education and research. Speaking to News Five today, Edgell shared that he plans to use the monetary award to fund further research.

 

Dr. Randall Edgell, Award Recipient, St. Louis University School of Medicine

“Sydney Souers was a wealthy philanthropist. I guess he started his life as an admiral in the US Navy in World War II. He actually was the first person to lead the C.I.A. in the United States and unfortunately had a stroke. He was treated at our institution back in the 1970s, and at that time, he felt he received good care. His family was very grateful and then later in the 1980s, his wife left some money to the university to create this position, this endowed professorship in stroke care. And this was the award that I was lucky enough to receive a few days ago. All universities have this type of award in endowed professorship. It’s one of the highest honors you can receive as a university professor, and it’s given to people who stand out in their career for having accomplished special things in terms of teaching or research or national prominence. I don’t get to spend the money itself. I have access to – it is invested in stock market and I get to spend the interest that accumulates on that fund. And so that’s what I have access to each year. I think in my case, I’ll be using it to advance a type of research that I am involved in, looking at stents. Stents are small metal cylinders that are used to open up blocked blood vessels and there’s a particular area in the back of the neck called the vertebral artery that takes blood to the back of the brain and that’s an area where there’s not a lot of research on stenting.”