ENCSN News: 2012



ENCSN Recognition: Inaugural ENCSN Marie Welch Golden Lobe Award

1/12--ENCSN Staff and Members were proud to recognize and honor Marie Welch during the January 2012 ENCSN Quarterly Meeting by presenting her with the inaugural "Golden Lobe Award" for her service. The award is also named in her honor and will be presented annually to a noteworthy stroke champion in eastern North Carolina.

The award honor was a surprise to Marie Welch, as she assumed that she was going to give a presentation on the success of the stroke support group at Vidant Medical Center (formerly Pitt County Memorial Hospital; the slides of Marie's presentation on stroke support groups can be found here). Instead, Marie was honored by the presence of members of the stroke support group--stroke survivors and their caregivers/family; serenaded by her hospital stroke team colleagues ("Stop in the Name of Stroke"); and presented with the award plaque.

Marie was a founding member of ENCSN, and the first chairperson of the ENCSN rehabilitation workgroup. She has been instrumental in the planning and organization of all stroke prevention and treatment events through ENCSN and partner organizations in eastern NC. Overall, honoring Marie with the ENCSN Golden Lobe Award was bittersweet because there could be no more deserving of an individual, but the award also coincided with Marie's retirement from her position as a stroke coordinator at Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, NC. Marie will be missed, even while we hope to keep her as a contact and a vital resource person on stroke care and stroke rehabilitation in eastern NC.

The text of the award plaque that was presented to Marie Welch reads as follows: