Betty Q. Banker, MD (1921–2010)

Abstract

Betty Q. Banker, a pioneer in neuropathology, died on February 7, 2010, at the age of 88 years. Betty was born in New York City in 1921 and raised by her mother in Freeport, Long Island, under difficult circumstances. Supported by a scholarship, she earned a bachelor degree from Ithaca College and became a high school teacher. She soon decided to take a medical degree. After graduation from Albany Medical College, she interned at the Boston University Hospital. In 1950, she was a neurology resident at the Boston City Hospital under the tutelage of Dr Derek Denny-Brown, and in 1953, she became a neuropathology resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital under the direction of Dr Raymond Adams. From 1955 to 1957, she again worked with Denny-Brown, examining the effects of denervation on normal and dystrophic muscle. In 1957, Betty was appointed Neuropathologist at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston and became an Associate in Neuropathology at the Harvard Medical School. In the same year, she married Maurice Victor, a neurologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1962, Betty and Maurice moved to the Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital, where Betty became the director of the Division of Neuropathology and Maurice the director of the Neurology Service; both were appointed professors in their respective fields at Western Reserve (now Case Western) University. In 1986, Betty and …