I am Doctor Charles Taylon, I am a neurosurgeon in Omaha, Nebraska. I am currently affiliated with Creighton University and Catholic Health Initiatives.  I am probably 90 to 95% retired. I was educated on the East Coast where I grew up, then I came to Nebraska and attended the Creighton University School of Medicine. During my tenure at Creighton, I was exposed to Neuro Trauma and it provoked my interest in neurosurgery. I then trained in neurological surgery at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin. After completing my residency, I returned to the faculty of Creighton University, where I remained for 33 years. The last 12 years of that tenure I was Chief of Neurosurgery. I finished out my career prior to my retirement at the medical college of Wisconsin, where I taught residents and students. I then returned to Omaha in a partially retired state. I have been asked to help out Creighton with the call schedule, teaching, and the admissions process.

My chief interest during that entire time and my teachings and publications are related to neuro trauma. I have treated about 10,000 head injuries from severe to moderate to minor. I soon learned a few things. I learned that we had a big responsibility in the acute care, both surgically and medically, of these traumatic brain injuries. We followed them through the rehabilitation process. It then became apparent that just because we did the best job we could and the rehabilitation services did the best job they could, that their problems were not over. Many of them continued to have problems, no different than soldiers who were injured in war, due to ongoing issues. I learned that the Brain Injury Alliance (BIA) was focusing on those issues that is they were focused on problems that brain injury people have after they had all of the conventional treatment. Often, as I found out while working in the Veteran Administration hospital for 35 years they are lost. They may be able to walk and talk. They may be able to dress themselves take care of themselves in their daily lives, but they are lost in society.

The BIA was formed to help them in that phase of their life, help them by educating them, help them by giving them resources, and also by teaching others that this was a problem in society and educating the rest of society to try and help these people. In order to do that resources are required, and they asked me to serve on the Brain Injury Alliance of Nebraska (BIA-NE) Board of Directors, which I consented to immediately. I am now on the Board. I am involved with teaching and I am involved with fundraising. We need the funds in order to have the resources in order to take these people to a stage in their lives which really hasn’t been addressed significantly in the past years. Once again, it’s not for acute care of injuries like I did, it’s not for rehab like some of our people in the BIA have worked with, but it’s after the fact. And that is where the concentration is. And that is why we need the funds to help these people complete their lives.