Ralph G. Dacey Jr., MD, the Henry G. and Edith R. Schwartz Professor and head of the Department of Neurological Surgery, has received the Walter Reed Distinguished Service Award, one of the highest awards given by his alma mater, the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
Dacey, who received the award in the spring, graduated from the school in 1974. Among his many accomplishments, Dacey has received the Society of Neurosurgeon’s Winn Prize, its highest professional award for career research achievement; authored more than 190 publications on neurosurgery and the blood vessels of the brain; been elected to the Institute of Medicine; and been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.
At age 38, Dacey became the youngest to oversee a neurosurgery department when he became head of the department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1987. He became head of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Washington University in 1989.