Dr. Edward E. Conway Jr., GSAS ’80, will deliver the Fall Gannon Lecture onNov. 17 on a severe form of child abuse known as Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).
Conway, chairman of the Milton and Bernice Stern Department of Pediatrics and chief of Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center, has devoted his career to investigating the causes and effects of SBS, which is responsible for more than 3,000 infant deaths in the United States each year. The injury occurs when an adult violently shakes an infant or child, and can happen from as little as five seconds of shaking.
Conway’s work focuses on how a human body provides information that can determine whether a head injury to an infant is accidental or at the hands of an adult who violently shook the child.
“They didn’t do anything to deserve this,” Conway said. “This work is important because it’s a way to protect innocence and give back to others.”
A recipient of the Leon M. Davidoff Certificate of Distinction for teaching of medical students and a Lewis M. Fraad Scholar in Child Health, Conway is a former chairman of the Pediatric Section of the Society of Critical Care Medicine and a senior member of the PCCM Section of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
He earned his master’s degree in cell biology at Fordham and, later, his medical degree at New York’s Downstate Medical School.
A professor of clinical pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and a member of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ Advisory Board, Conway has assisted law enforcement professionals in assessing infant head injuries and determining whether they result from child abuse. His areas of expertise include educational issues, pediatric head injuries, intracranial hypertension and outcomes analysis.
The Fall Gannon Lecture will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 17 in the 12th Floor Lounge of the Lowenstein Center on Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus. It is sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
