T.S. Park, M.D., the Shi Hui Huang Professor of Neurological Surgery at the School of Medicine and chief of pediatric neurosurgery at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, has received the H. Richard Winn, M.D., Prize, the highest honor of the Society of Neurological Surgeons.
The international award recognizes a neurosurgeon for outstanding research in the neurosciences that impacts clinical practice. Park has pioneered the use of selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) as a treatment for patients with spastic cerebral palsy (CP), the most common form of CP. The SDR procedure reduces spasticity in CP and improves motor functions by cutting nerve fibers. Over the past 22 years, Park has performed SDR on more than 1,700 patients from 48 states and 38 countries, more than any other neurosurgeon in the world.
Two other WUSTL neurosurgeons have won a similar honor, known as the Grass Award, from the Society of Neurological Surgeons. Ralph G. Dacey Jr., M.D., the Henry G. and Edith R. Schwartz Professor and head of the Department of Neurological Surgery, won the Grass Award in 2003; Robert L. Grubb Jr., M.D., the Herbert Lourie Professor of Neurological Surgery and professor of radiation sciences, received it in 1990.