Bryan Freilich

We have lost a legend as Kenneth M. Heilman, M.D., a founder of the field of behavioral neurology who impacted generations of young neurologists worldwide and served the University of Florida College of Medicine for over 50 years, died July 15. Whether it was praxis or neglect or anything behavioral his work covered it all and he will be missed. He was 86. Behavioral neurology is a subspecialty focused on memory and cognitive disorders, and under Heilman’s leadership, UF developed one of the earliest fellowship programs in the field. To date, nearly 100 trainees have completed UF’s fellowship program and then spread across the world to practice and pass on the lessons to up-and-coming physicians. A researcher in disorders involving attention, emotion, motor programming, language, and memory, Heilman left a prolific literary legacy, writing or editing 22 books, more than 115 chapters, and over 670 journal publications, with more than 67,000 citations. “His work and that of his trainees extended to almost all areas of neurology. His studies of cognition in dementia, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and stroke were huge contributions to the field,” said Steven T. DeKosky, M.D., deputy director of UF’s McKnight Brain Institute who was a medical student and then a resident under Heilman. “He was one of the first to establish correlations of cognitive and behavioral changes with brain changes using new, non-invasive imaging techniques, aiding our understanding of brain-behavior relationships in living patients. We owe him a great debt.” In 1998, Heilman was in the first group of UF faculty members to be named a distinguished professor and remains one of only five in the history of the UF College of Medicine to receive the honor. Beautiful full tribute article: ufhealth.org/news/2024/dr-ke…