Plenary Lecture : Sheila Wallace Award
Tuesday, May 7th: 9:15 AM – 10:00 AM 

Dr. Sebunya works in Uganda in an incredibly busy and resource-constrained setting based at St. Francis Hospital Nsambya, Uganda, as the 4th Child Neurologist to be based in a country of some 43 million people. Since his return, he has innovated local services, restructuring care for children with Neurologic Diseases, especially Epilepsy, and upregulated the Neurophysiology services, collaborating with an Epilepsy Surgery Unit.

He was awarded the Bernard D’souza International Fellowship Award by the Child Neurology Society in the year 2022. There, he presented his work and spent some time in specialist Child Neurology units, further upskilling his knowledge.

Dr. Robert is an enthusiastic teacher, a great clinician, and has a real passion for Child Neurology. Since his return to Uganda, he has already assisted with developing strategic plans for strengthening and building specialty services for children in his country.

Inevitably, this goes beyond Child Neurology in isolation and speaks to the need for multidisciplinary teams as well as the implementation of standard operating procedures and acceptance of national guidelines to set a precedent for accepted care packages.

Dr Sheila Wallace was the Director of the Children's Centre, where she worked in cooperation with the Community Health Service, Neonatologists, an Orthopaedic Surgeon, and the Professor of Mental Handicap. She was on the Medical Advisory Committee of the British Epilepsy Association from 1974 – 1984, on the British Epilepsy Research Foundation Awards Committee from 1986, Treasurer of the BPNA from 1984 – 1986, she served on the Committee on the Safety of Medicines and the MRC's Committee on the Development of Vaccines and Immunisation procedures. From 1990, she was a board member of the International Child Neurology Association (ICNA), and from 1999–2001, the European Paediatric Neurology Association (EPNS); she sat on the Editorial boards of MacKeith Press and the European Journal of Paediatric Neurology. Among all this, she kept up a continual flow of academic work, most evident in her publications but including lecturing at home and abroad, particularly in places where the need was most prominent. She alone built Paediatric Neurology in South Wales with the same deep determination and carried its influence across Europe and the World.

Rowland Isaac, her husband, to whom she was loyally devoted, died in 1993. Her response led to a further increase in her work rate and travel. Even so, by 1996, she edited “Epilepsy in Children (Chapman & Hall)” a book that contains a great deal of her own work and reveals the distinguished authors who were pleased to contribute at her request.

When she learned of her mortal illness in the summer of 2002, she said, “I would rather spend such time as remains to me in my garden rather than in an ambulance going back and forth to the hospital for treatment”. She made a brave and proper decision for herself that was entirely consistent with her character. She had the habit of making bold and right decisions!

As a Research Associate and Honorary Lecturer at the Department of Child Life and Health in Edinburgh, she undertook essential work on the aetiology and outcome of febrile convulsions, leading to 15 publications by 1979. It was the start of her significant contribution to research into Epilepsy and teaching about it.

Her special interest in Seizure Disorders was only one aspect of her work. She covered Metabolic Disorders, Infectious and Vascular Disease, as well as Trauma and Neuromuscular Disorders. Anyone privileged to see the quality of that clinical work is amazed by the fine and comprehensive detail of her notes and observations. She gathered training posts and attracted appreciative doctors from many countries.

Her kindness, liveliness, impish sense of humour, brave and bold decision-making attitude, love and knowledge of flowers and world nature, teaching and Committee obligations made her recognized over more than 49 countries! That was the most satisfactory achievement of her life!

To celebrate Wallace’s lifetime achievements and to pass on the legacy of her work, ICNA has been hosting a Sheila Wallace Award to many speakers at its International Child Neurology Congresses (ICNCs) since 2006. At every ICNCs, ICNA honours the “Sheila Wallace Award” to a young Child Neurologist of 45 years of age from a resource-limited region in recognition of clinical and research contributions to Child Neurology.