Southern Headache Society Past Presidents
Rebecca Erwin Wells, MD, MPH
Years President: 2022-2024
Dr. Rebecca Erwin Wells is a Professor with tenure in Neurology and Social Sciences Health Policy at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem, NC. She has been…
Brian Plato, DO
Years President: 2020-2022
Dr. Brian Plato is the medical director of headache medicine with the Norton Neuroscience Institute in Louisville, KY. Dr. Plato received his medical degree from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. He completed both his…
Brian Loftus, MD
Years President: 2016-2020
Dr. Brian Loftus’s journey to medicine was the road less travelled. His initial encounter with the medical field occurred during a summer between his freshman and sophomore years in college, when he worked with a…
Morris Maizels, MD
Years President: 2011-2016
Morris Maizels MD is a family physician and headache specialist, who has been involved in headache care and research since 1994. His study – Intranasal Lidocaine for Treatment of Migraine (JAMA 1996) – laid the…
Lifetime Achievement Award Winners
2022 Award Winner
Anne Calhoun, MD
Anne Calhoun MD received the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Headache Society at its annual meeting in 2022. Dr. Calhoun was Professor of Psychiatry and Anesthesiology at the Univeristy of N Carolina.She was a pioneer in the field of hormone therapy for women with migraine and other headache disorders, having authored more than 30 articles on the subject. Dr. Calhoun challenged entrenched medical beliefs about the risks of contraceptive therapy as well as estrogen-replacement therapy for women with migraine. In 2017, her article Hormonal Contraceptives and Migraine With Aura-Is There Still a Risk? challenged the guidelines of the day which considered aura a contra-indication to combined hormonal contraceptives. She summarized the evidence that the modern era of low-dose CHCs were safe in women with aura, allowing this important treatment modality to be offered to millions of women, changing their lives. Other areas of her research focused on the role of neck pain in delaying migraine treatment, the value of cognitive behavior therapy for sleep and migraine management, and presentations of vertigo in headache.