Bradford Walters, MD, PhD, MBA – Director, 21^st Century Children

Background - Dr. Walters received his BA summa cum laude from Harvard College in chemistry and physics, did basic neuroscience research for his PhD from University College London (supported by a Marshall Scholarship), and then received his MD jointly from Harvard Medical School and MIT through their Health Sciences and Technology program.  After doing an internship in surgery at Johns Hopkins, he returned to Boston for neurosurgical residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital.  He then moved to Chapel Hill, where for fifteen years he served on the surgical faculty of the University of North Carolina and later also received a clinical appointment at Wake Forest University.  At UNC Dr. Walters developed the Stereotactic Radiosurgery and Epilepsy Surgery Programs with colleagues from radiation oncology and neurology, respectively.  In 2001 he completed the Executive MBA Program at Kenan-Flagler Business School.  He now is a Partner at Academy Funds, which he joined in 2002.

During his years here he has been active in the North Carolina Medical Society and, through them, was appointed to the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance (NCHICA).  At NCHICA Dr. Walters chairs the Standing Advisory Committee, co-chairs the Bioterrorism Task Force, and sits on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors as well as several other committees and working groups.  He has had a long-standing interest in the applications of technology in healthcare, and has delivered invited talks in a variety of venues throughout North Carolina on the physician’s office of the future and medical errors.  Dr. Walters is a member of the Boards of Directors of Kucera Pharmaceutical Company (Winston-Salem), Curry Pharmaceuticals (RTP), and the Piedmont Entrepreneurial Network, and also the Science Advisory Board of UNC-Greensboro.

21^st Century Children - I have a child who benefited from taking Ritalin.  It truly helped him focus at school and at home over a period of more than a decade – from his perspective as well as mine.

As he made the transition from high school to college two years ago (with all the associated and, in retrospect, obvious environmental changes), we perhaps should not have been surprised that medication no longer seemed to be effective.  We struggled with dosing and different drugs.  It did not occur to me that there could be another reasonably well researched option for us to consider – as a physician myself and having taken my child to the best clinicians I could find, I thought I would have been taught or been told about all plausible options.  However, it was only after I became a Board member of 21^st Century Children that I became aware of what I thought could be a viable treatment alternative (in this case, EEG biofeedback).

My child is in the process of applying this technique and is very encouraged by what he has experienced so far.  However, it’s much too early to know if this will be effective in the medium to long term.  Still, I’d have liked to have known about this approach two years ago, when he started having difficulties.

Our family can attest to the value of Ritalin.  It’s wonderful that prescription medications are available; they should not be demonized, since when used appropriately they can be positively life-transforming.  It also is good that other options exist for those who would prefer not to use medication – though I will admit to some concern about the true effectiveness of many if not most of these techniques (for which objective, credible evidence is either completely lacking or tenuous at best).

I have chosen to participate in 21^st Century Children because I believe that we should make educated decisions for ourselves and for our children.  Being aware of the available options is the first step toward making such decisions, and is the rationale behind this website.  It is not intended to make specific recommendations.  Each visitor still has the great and personal responsibility to evaluate the reasonableness and appropriateness of the approaches discussed here.