More Specialists. Shorter Waits. Changed Lives.

Connor was only eight months old when he had his first debilitating seizure. His mother rushed him to the emergency room, where he was diagnosed with infantile spasms. “I was so naïve,” his mother recalls. “I thought once he was diagnosed, there would be medication.”

There were medications – several of them – but none made a difference. Connor’s seizures multiplied until he was having 50 to 100 seizures per day. Eventually, doctors had nothing left to try. His seizures had become so severe and unresponsive to treatment that Connor was placed on hospice care. 

Then his mother found Dr. Olivia Kim-McManus, a pediatric epileptologist whose specialized fellowship training was supported by The Care & Cure Institute.

The Care & Cure Institute was founded in 2006 by Mark Borman and Andrew Gumpert, two fathers whose own children had been diagnosed with catastrophic epilepsy. At the time, families in Los Angeles were waiting up to nine months to see a specialist – even families with infants having dozens of seizures a day. Borman and Gumpert asked one of the country’s most respected pediatric epileptologists what could be done. The answer was simple: Los Angeles needed more doctors – specifically, more highly-trained pediatric epilepsy specialists.

So they set out to solve that problem.

Today, The Care & Cure Institute partners with leading children’s hospitals to create sustainable fellowship endowments that fund advanced training for pediatric epilepsy specialists. Each hospital matches the Institute’s investment, doubling the impact and helping ensure that expert care remains available for future generations of children.

These fellowships provide specialized training beyond pediatric neurology residency, and their impact is immediate: fellows begin seeing patients in their first week. The Care & Cure Institute has helped establish pediatric epilepsy endowments and fellowship programs at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, USC Keck, and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

Training Life-Saving Pediatric Epilepsy Specialists

The Care & Cure Institute has funded the training of 57 pediatric epilepsy fellows. Sixty-four percent of the pediatric epileptologists practicing in California were funded by The Institute. In Southern California, the wait to see a specialist once stretched to nine months; now, it is three to five days.

Today, specialists are there to help families navigate the complex medical path involved in pediatric epilepsy – families like Connor’s.

Dr. Olivia Kim-McManus took over Connor’s treatment and customized a trial medication just for him, tailored to his diagnosis of a rare SCN2A epilepsy. After his second dose of the medication, at eight years old, Connor took his first-ever unassisted steps. After four months, he was seizure-free.

Connor’s mom understands the power of The Care & Cure Institute’s model firsthand: “These doctors are truly changing the lives of their patients.”

The Care & Cure Institute is now expanding its model to bring expert pediatric epilepsy care to leading children’s hospitals across the country, including UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, Cottage Children’s Medical Center, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and more.

Every new fellowship means more specialists, shorter waits, and more children like Connor reaching the doctors who can change their lives.